


Arm Repairs, Assassinations and Other Awkward Advances

by KNACC



Series: Awkward Nerds In Love [2]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff, Other, awkward nerds in love, cyborg!zer0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 01:50:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KNACC/pseuds/KNACC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zer0 decides to let someone in.  He immediately regrets it but can't seem to stop smiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Calibrations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Despite it being basically 4 years since I wrote this story, I recently came back and reread it all and found myself really enjoying everything except a few bits of the first chapter so I decided to edit it just slightly to bring it more in line with how I feel about the rest of the piece and improve my own and hopefully other peoples future readthroughs but ymmv. I do hope I will edit out some more of the simple spelling and grammer mistakes spread throughout the piece in the future as well but we shall see.

_ That was a stupid thing to do _ , Zer0 thinks a moment after he steps in front of a barreling badass skag that had been headed for Gaige.  He can hear the joint in his right elbow grind just a little bit more as he picks himself back up off the ground.  Even so, it should be fine.  His tech is too good to break from just a little force.  He gathers himself, breathes out as he lines up his next shot and... misses.  A complete and total miss.  One more try then.  

He picks a target, taking just a little extra time to sight it and... misses again.  _  Damn.  Looks like I’ll need to sneak off and perform some maintenance tonight. _  The last skag falls and the Vault Hunters slip into a natural lull.  Perfect.

“I’m going to go/ Wildlife is not a challenge/ See you all later.”

“Hey, Wait up!” Gaige shouts, quickly catching up to his leisurely pace.

“Go back,” Zer0 huffs.

“What?  No way!  I need to thank you for that stunt you just pulled.  You really saved my bacon!” She keeps them walking as she says this, looping her arm through his. He looks at the arm, but doesn’t shake her off.  “Also,” she leans close and whispers, “It looks to me like you're going to need that arm recalibrated.”

“!” Zer0’s faceplate lights up as his eyes widen in shock.

Still talking quietly, “Dude, it is really obvious if you know what you’re looking for.  Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?” She hammers on her own metal arm for effect. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”

“Just simple repairs/ Please return to the others/ I’m fine on my own.”

“But I’m sure it has to be hard tuning such a precision instrument when its attached to you.  And I’m the best robotics expert you’ll probably ever meet.  And I totally owe you for that block. Why not give me a chance to really spruce the old girl up?”

Zer0 hates it but she’s right.  The repairs might take all night if he has to do them alone.  And she really is a good engineer.  Any idiot can see Deathtrap and realize she’s a prodigy.

He sighs, “Fine,” and plugs the coordinates to Sanctuary into the fast travel station.

The second they arrive, Gaige flails in excitement, “OMG, let me go grab my tools.  I am so excited, you would not believe.”

Zer0 looks at her blankly.

Oblivious, Gaige smiles and leans in conspiratorially.  “So, where do you want to do this?”

Zer0 considers, then says, “Backdoor. Moxxi’s.”

“Great, be right back,” she says and then nearly skips away.

Already, this seems to be turning out to be an even worse decision than he had feared.  He sighs and goes to wait for her.

Ten minutes later, Gaige arrives dragging what appears to be a rather large toolbox.  “Eh, sorry to make you wait.  I totally forgot to ask what components your arm is made of so I had to bring all my toys just to make sure I had the right stuff.”

Zer0 stops mid practice swing with his sword and sighs.  “Fine. Let’s go,” he says, leading her down a nearby alley.  He goes to a door, mostly hidden behind a dumpster, his hands deftly picking the lock ( _ far too slow for anywhere else  _ he thinks) until the old tumbler yields.

Gaige follows him in, peering into the darkness.  “What is this place? Is it your super secret ninja hideaway?”

“No.” He turns on the lights with a flick.

Gaige blinks and tries to glance around.  “What is it then?”

Sliding the door closed, Zer0 says, “Places left empty/ A city stale and unused/ we’re just borrowing.”

“Ah, just a little of your standard breaking and entering then.  That’s cool.  I’m down.” Gaige leans against the nearest wall, aiming for casual but failing.

Zer0 rolls his eyes but says nothing.  She really is from Eden-5.  

“So where do you want to do this?  I have no idea what exactly I’m dealing with so...”

“Bed.” Zer0 quickly decides.  That will give her plenty of space to spread out her tools if need be.  He sits down and promptly starts removing his gloves and then his chest plating.

“Oh okay.  And you’re going to just-” Gaige’s eyes bulge a little at the first sign of skin.  “I’ll just-” She turns around to face the wall, “give you some privacy then.”

Again Zer0 questions the intelligence of this plan.  If she is squirming now, what is she going to do when she actually sees what his mods looks like?  He knows that he hasn’t looked particularly human for awhile now and while he doesn’t regret it in the slightest, sharing this one tiny fact with another soul is... uncomfortable.  Folding his armor and setting it aside, he decides it is time to bite the bullet and deal with the fallout, whatever it is. “Ready.”

Gaige turns around, eyes wide as they skims his metal arms and scarred chest, “You’re...” Zer0 cringes as she pauses, “amazing.”  She rushes to seat herself next to him on the bed, dragging her hilariously large toolbox along and he lets out a breath he’d never admit he was holding in.  “This has to be some of the most fantastic work I’ve ever seen.”  

“:)” he emotes and even actually smiles for once. Good.

Skilled fingers run themselves from just brushing the remaining flesh on his shoulder, to his elbow to his intricate, lithe hands.  She moves the arm out and up, bending the elbow with a look of amazement on her face.

After a few moments spent in intense concentration on his right arm, she says, ear to his elbow joint as she flexes it, “I don’t think your little run in with the skag is totally to blame for you needing this tune-up.”

“No?” 

“You have everything wound way too tight.  The pieces are all cleanly molded titanium so they don’t wear down easy but-”

“Parts unimportant/ Doomed to fail due to my work/ Results all that count.”

Her pigtails just brush his arm as she continues to flex it. “So you're willing to burn through hundreds of thousands of dollars of quality parts a year just to be just a tiny bit better?” 

He doesn’t even think for a second.  “Yes.”

“You know,” she looks up at him, eyes big, “with more routine maintenance from someone like me-”

“No.”

“Oh come on!  It’s not like it would be a hassle.  I basically follow you around everywhere already.  I mean-” she pauses, looking anywhere but him, “it’s not just you.  To be honest, I follow  _ all of _ the Vault Hunters around like a little lost puppy.”

“No.”

Shoulders falling, she sighs, “Am I really that lame to be around? I know I talk way too much but-”

“You misunderstand/ You are not a helpless girl/ You too hunt the vault.”

“Oh,”  she smiles, “Thank you.”  A pause.  “So does that mean you’ll let me check up on these bad boys every once in awhile?”

“Perhaps.” 

“And in the land of decisive people who need to know how to recalibrate your arm right now that means?”

Zer0 regrets the words before they even leave his mouth but he can’t keep from saying, “Do as you wish.”  Looks like he just scheduled himself another appointment with Gaige.

“Right on!”

A companionable near-silence falls as Gaige hums to herself and applies tool after tool to Zer0’s arm.  After she finishes with the first one, she glances over to the other. “So are these arms the only mods you have or?”

“No.”

“Where are the others?” She asks, reaching right across to place hands on both his hips as if to feels for the metal joints beneath his armor.  Clearly his body had been running on High Alert due to her close proximity and constant touching since he feels his cock shift at the touch. 

She’s started to say, “Both legs would make sense but-” when she freezes, clearly having just realized where her hands are and how close her face is to his bare chest.  “I’m way sorry about this.  I was definitely not hitting on you just now.  Not that I wouldn’t hit on you.  I would, I mean, you are super hot and I haven’t ever even seen your face, now that’s impressive.  Not that you want me to hit on you.  I’m sure you’ve has much prettier women flirt with you. Or dudes, much prettier dudes maybe?  I have no idea how you swing and either way it’s fine and none of my business. Oh my god, please let me out of this conversation already.”

Zer0 chuckles, half nerves and half at Gaige’s word vomit.  His cock is still very excited about this new development in spite of all his requests for it to calm the fuck down.  Stupid, unreliable organic parts.  Steadying himself in hopes of not sounding too turned on, he says, “If you aren’t flirting/ You might want to move your hands/ They’re a bit too low.”  

“Oh god, hahaha... right,” she giggles as she flails, backing off to her original, still close but not all in his lap, location.  She shifts, eyes trying to look everywhere but him and failing.  There’s a moment when all he can hear is their breathing and the springs of the mattress as Gaige fails at sitting still.  “Oh hey, I’ve got an idea,” Gaige says a bit too loudly.  “While we're at it, do you want me to just tune up your other arm as well?”

“Please.”  A part of him wants her to leave so he can take a shower or maybe jerk off but the rest of him knows better.  If she only adjusts one of his arms, it will take much longer for him to compensate to its variance from his norm and that will lead to an unacceptable rate of failure.

“Yeah okay,” she grabs her tools by the handfuls and then moves to sit on the other side of him.  The process of touching, listening and gasping in awe over his limbs begins again.

Zer0 tries really hard to not think about how nice this is.  He thinks about the empty, raw grip of death, the ultimate kind of failure; and of Handsome Jack’s smug, smarmy voice ringing in his ears.  It only kinda works.

Gaige works steadily but is clearly dying in the presence of this much silence since she clears her throat and says, “I know this is literally none of my business but do you?”

“What?”

“Do you... flirt or get hit on?  I mean, you’re a super secret assassin.  A lot of people probably find that whole shebang really sexy.”

“No.”

“No, they don’t find it attractive or no, you just aren’t into that stuff?”

“I do not flirt/ Seduction is no challenge/ I choose solitude.”

She stops glancing up at him, her eyes now focusing purely on her work.  “Yeah. That does make sense.” Her jaw seems to tighten and she leans just a slight bit farther away from him.

And that should be it.  He’s not blind.  He’s noticed her little crush on him, noticed the way she smiles a bit extra when he’s around, noticed her generally manic personality becoming even more flustered. Seeing her shoulders slump and her eyes look away should be a good thing. He knows that relationships are a waste of time, that caring is messy and only leads to problems. And yet... he can’t shake how nice it was when she was closer.  There’s a part of him, a less wise part, that doesn’t want it to stop.  Because despite his best efforts, she still makes him laugh, even if it is usually just to himself.  And she likes him, even though he’s cold and pushes her away every chance he gets.  And she thinks his mods are things to drool over instead of shy away from.

_ Damn _ , he sighs and finds himself reaching out for her own metal shoulder with his newly adjusted hand.  

At the contact, she looks up at him confused.  “If you're trying to be nice suddenly or, you know,” she makes mocking air quotes, “let me down gently, there is no need.  I’m a fucking Vault Hunter, scourge of Hyperion and bandits alike.  I don’t care about that kind of shit.”

Zer0 sighs and even though she can’t see his face, he tries to hold it impassive all the same.  “A rare girl like you/ Can even make me notice/ I’m screwing this up.”

Gaige turns to him slowly.  "What do you mean this?"  She frowns and then looks from where his hand is on her shoulder, to his helmet and then back again.  "Wait, do you mean… us," she gestures between them with a hand, "As in you like me like me but keep fucking it up?" 

Zer0 feels his stomach flip at the question but knows that only one answer will allow him to keep enjoying this stupid thing he wants so he squeezes her shoulder and nods once.

Gaige's eyes grow wide as she starts to grin.  "I knew you liked me back, all that staring and protecting me and trying not to laugh at my jokes." She laughs and smacks him on the shoulder. "You are pretty much the worst at flirting though to be honest.  Even my lab partner from ninth period Advanced Physics was more smooth than you and he talked directly to my boobs.  It’s a good thing you have that rocking ass to make up for it or else-”

Zer0 can feel his cheeks heat up as Gaige’s eye grow wide.

“Oh god, did I really just say that out loud?  Me and Lilith joke about it all the time but I never thought I’d actually say it out loud to, ya know, you.  And I‘d just cracked that joke about the dude staring at me and then I do the same thing to you. You are like way more than a hot ass to me, I promise. Not that I don’t like it or anything and it's not that I’m really expecting anything serious serious between us- gah!” She buries her face in her hands, a muffled, “Why do I keep talking?” filtering out through her fingers.

At this, Zer0 gives up and laughs, a real full bodied laugh that shakes his chest and shoulders.  Between chuckles, he gasps out, “It’s titanium/ Should I scout ahead more then?/ So you’ll like the view?”  

Gaige squeaks, turning back to his arm while her face becomes a bright red.  “And now you flirt just fine.  Fuck, I’m done.  Totally done.  I’m just going to finish up this arm and then slink away to die in a corner somewhere.  Sound okay?”

“No,” he says, daring to run his hand across her cheek, “Not okay.”

Gaige turns her head into the caress, eyes staring into his mask.  Suddenly, she plants a kiss right on his helmet, dropping her tools and wrapping her arms around his neck in the process.

“!” Zer0’s mask flashes.  Without thinking about it, he responds by wrapping both his arms around her waist.

Gaige pulls back slightly and glances down.  “That was a really silly thing to do, wasn’t it?  Like way too much too fast kind of silly, right?”

Zer0 gazes at the top of her head.  He’d like to say she is wrong but she’s not.  Even though he’s already stupidly decided he wants this, whatever it is, he’s not sure he’s ready to start dealing with the consequences.  Like her maybe wanting to see his face someday, possibly. That is his baggage though so he bumps the forehead of his helmet gently against hers and says, “I’m okay with it/ Awkward and silly perhaps/ Because it was you.”  He’s just starting to pull her closer, longing for a bit more contact when she lets out a wail like she’s been burned by acid.

Zer0 freezes, confused.  He notices she’s lifted up her shirt a little and is staring at her waist. 

“Oh geeze,” She hisses through her teeth as she pokes at something he can’t quite see.  “That stings almost as much as getting shot.”

“What?” He says.

She looks from him to her waist and bursts out laughing.  “Oh God, we are both like actually the worst at this.  I kiss boys on their helmets which are most likely still covered in blood and skag spit and you push girls away and then when you try to pull them close, you pinch them.  Together we are like the biggest romantic natural disaster ever recorded.  We almost need to stay together forever so as to keep the rest of the universe safe from our possible fallout.”

Zer0 filters through everything she just said, ignoring the comment about staying together that makes his stomach clench nervously and finds the important word.  “Pinched?” he asks, cocking his head to the side.

“Yeah but really it’s my own damn fault.  I didn’t finish up your calibrations and then I distracted you, so as a result, I got pinched.  See?” She turns to show him the offending hip.  Upon it, a deep red spot had begun to blossom.  “So now, I’m going to actually finish what I came here to do and then get out of your hair, or well yeah; whether or not you have hair is a mystery for another day.”

Zer0 snickers at that as Gaige again sits herself down next to him and tries to focus on his arm.  He watches an intense look of concentration flit across her face off and on as she finishes up on his arm and smiles to himself.  

He’s nearly certain she’s just about done when she says out of nowhere, “Seriously stop, I know I’m not the model for productivity here but you’re way not helping.”

“?” He emotes and she looks up from her work and sighs.

“You're just, ya know, clearly staring at me and smiling and when you do that, I want to look at you and then you stare at me some more and really it is an unproductive cycle.”  Zer0 considers asking how she knew when she says, “Shhhh, I’m just abooouuuuut,” stalling by stretching the word out so it takes nearly a minute, “done!”  She smiles.  “So yeah, you can go now.  I’m sure you want to test out your newly improved robot limbs and there will be plenty of time for us to be literally the worst at liking each other later.”

She’s mostly right on both fronts but despite that,he kinda really just wants run his now safe hands across her face and through her hair rather than making the logical choice he knows he should.  Instead of giving in to the impulse though, he just says, “Thank you.” 

“No prob,” she smiles again.  “I really need to bail too tbh, get back to Maya before she thinks you killed me or something.”

Zer0 nods and pulls back on his armor and  gloves slowly as Gaige packs up her tools which have become strewn about in the past hour.  Once fully dressed, he lets himself sets a hand on her shoulder, dragging it across her back as he goes to leave.

She leans back into the touch and then turns to look at him with a big smile on her face.  “Make sure to tell me how well they’re working for you later, okay?  I can adjust them anytime so... yeah.”

“Thanks again,” he says and he smiles in spite of himself.

***

Hours later, after he’s tested her adjustments to his satisfaction (his arms haven’t worked quite this well since they were brand new), he heads back to the Crimson Raider’s Headquarters.  Since it is the middle of the night, almost everyone seems to be asleep.  Axton, Salvador, Maya and Gaige have each taken a bunk while Mordecai is crashed on the couch.  He has no idea where Krieg is or if he even sleeps but he’s pretty sure he could guess where Roland and Lilith are.  He glances down at Gaige, limbs askew as she sleeps and sighs.  Momentarily, he imagines crawling into bed with her and sleeping there but he cringes at the thought.   _ Slow down, _ he frowns.   _ Who knows, tomorrow either of us may come to our senses and realize that this whole thing is a horrible idea. _   Despite the logic of that thought though, he still can’t keep himself from reaching out and brushing her bangs to the side with his fingers before propping himself against a nearby wall and drifting off to sleep.


	2. A Date of Sorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zer0 and Gaige go on a date. Kinda.

Zer0 awakes to the feeling of eyes on him.  He stays perfectly still, attempting to assess the situation.  He knows he’s in the Crimson Raiders Headquarters which means he’s theoretically safe but he’s not the sort of person to let something like that lull him into making a mistake.  He scans the room, looking for his observer until out of the corner of her eye he sees them: Gaige.  She has a screwdriver out and seems to be trying to work on her own mechanical arm but she keeps glancing up at him and smiling to herself instead of getting any work done.

Normally, he’d find her reaction to him ridiculous but he can’t help but feel pleased by the whole thing instead.  He’s considering feigning unconsciousness for a bit longer and just enjoying her smile when he realizes that any normal person would, now that its clear they are in no danger, reveal they are awake and interact with the person.  He decides to try that.  He shifts his head slightly to the side then makes a loud fake yawning noise.  Gaige hurries to look busy, staring at her arm intently.  Zer0 stretches his arms unnecessarily before turning to look at her.

“Morning,” she glances up from her arm and smiles.

He smiles back without thinking about it then emotes a “:)” at her as well.

“Soooooo,” she says, holding out her o’s as she glances around to see if they are alone.  Once she decides they are, she continues, saying, “How did you like my repairs?  Pretty snazzy right?”

Zer0 also glances around, not sure he trusts Gaige’s judgement on that before answering.  “They were excellent/ but have you kept it secret?/ no one can know this.”

Gaige scoffs.  “Don’t worry, I said I wouldn’t tell anyone and I won’t.  Your super secret ninja need to secrecy is not lost on me.”

“Not just about me,” he pauses, not sure how to say the next part, “I meant about  us as well/ Did you tell Maya?”

Gaige snorts and rolls her eyes, ”Like she’d believe me.” Gaige’s voice takes on a stupid quality as she continues, “Hey Maya, remember that guy you told me to watch out for?  The cold blooded killer?  Yeah well, he likes me, like... likes me likes me.  Cool right?” She shifts back to her normal tone of voice and adds, “I’m sure that would go over great.” 

“Good,” he nods.  If she hasn’t told Maya then she probably hasn’t told anyone yet.  There is still time to keep this contained.  “Keep it that way/ please do not tell anyone/ or openly flirt.”

“Wait a minute... you don’t want any of our friends to know about-” she gestures between the two of them.  She squints and says, “Is this some sort of weird extension of your secrecy thing or are you like... ashamed of me?” Zer0 can see Gaige’s face fall as she considers that, her eyes setting to angry behind a wet sheen of unshed tears. “Because if it’s the second one, you can fuck right the hell off.”  

He sighs, “This is about me/ there are those who hunt me/ secrets keep you safe.”

“Oh,” she says, her expression brightening up instantly. “Well, not to stomp all over your precious assassin ego or anything but I’m wanted too and for more money.  I think we are past the point of ‘keeping me safe’.” She makes finger quotes around the last few words.

Zer0 rolls his eyes.  “People want your tech/ or the skills that you possess/ Mine want me to die.” 

“People want me dead too.  Marcy’s parents... and Handsome Jack and… loads of people I’m sure.”

“Not these people.” 

“Are they really that bad?” 

“Fellow assassins/ will use you to get to me/ unacceptable.”  Zer0 can hear his voice get sterner as he says the last word but he ignores it.

Gaige looks at him, cocking her head slightly to the side.  “You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re really worried about... me?” Gaige says the “me” quietly, leaning forward like Zer0 wouldn’t be able to hear her otherwise.

After a pause, Zer0 says, “Yes,” not meeting Gaige’s eyes.

A huge smile break out across Gaige’s face.  “Awwww, that’s so sweet.  You really do like me.  I mean, I guess I already knew that but still,” she sees Zer0 staring at her and seems to try to reign in her smile but fails, the corners of her mouth quirking up as she says,  “Alright, alright I get it now.  I’ll try my best to keep this a secret.  I promise.”

“Thank you,” Zer0 says, looking back away from her.

A moment of awkward silence follows in which Zer0 tries very hard to not think about how much Gaige already knows and how much power she has over him. She interrupts his musings by saying, “So are you going to be coming over here or are you going to make me sit on the floor?”

“Gaige,” Zer0 says, annoyance obvious in his tone.

“What? You’re just sitting over there being all sexy and no one is around.  I can’t even be near you right now?”

“Someone could come in.”

“Then you come over here.  If you hear anyone coming, you can just poof to the other side of the room.” She rolls her eyes, “Geesh, it’s like you're not a ninja or something.”

Zer0 sighs but he knows she’s right.  He remembers the feeling of her fingers on his arms, the nerves and the rush, and knows he wants to feel like that again.  He gets to his feet and walks over to Gaige’s bunk before sitting down about a foot away from her.  Gaige immediately closes the distance so that their thighs are touching, her human hand reaching for his.  He lets her take it, the warmth from her hand and thigh spreading through his body and to his gut.

“You know,” she says quietly as she rubs her thumb against his, “I don’t actually know what I’m doing really.  I don’t have a plan or anything.  I just knew I wanted you here instead of there.  Is that alright?”

Zer0 gulps and doesn’t look at her but says, “Yes.”

She leans her cheek into upper arm, “Awesome.”

And so they sit for awhile, Gaige rambling about whatever crosses her mind and Zer0 listening, his heart taking up semi-permanent residence in his throat as she keeps leaning into him and playing with their joined hands.  Eventually though, Zer0 hears several of the other vault hunters enter HQ, their loud voices making it impossible to miss their arrival.  Zer0 moves to pull away but Gaige stretches out her neck and pecks him on the side of the helmet before releasing his hand, mumbling out “Sorry,” under her breath.  Zer0 dashes to the far side of the room without a second glance, trying his best to look like he is still sleeping.  Gaige, after a moment of staring at him with a big smile plastered on her face, resumes her earlier arm adjustments, just as their friends enter the room.

****

It turns out Roland had come to hand out a couple of missions.  One of which Gaige had signed both herself and Zer0 up for without a single thought to how that could look suspicious as far as Zer0 can tell.

“Real subtle,” Zer0 says quietly as he walks with Gaige to the Fast Travel Station.

“What? That was totally legit.  This is a mission to kill assassins and you’re an assassin.  Perfectly logical.”

Zer0 shakes his head.

Gaige mumbles, “Well excuse me for wanting to spend more time with you.  It’s not like we’re going to be making out or anything.  We’re going to go kill people, members of your chosen profession as I already stated.  It’s not exactly a hot date”

Zer0 scoffs, “Hyperion scum/ the Atlas elite had skill/ these are just thugs”

“So,” she glances over at him, “not guys you’re worried about then?”

“Not even close.”

“Good then it should be fine,” she grins back.

“That’s not what I meant,” he grumbles.

“I know what you meant but come on, we are bound to work together from time to time.  No one thinks Maya and Krieg are-” Gaige pauses, thinking over what she just said, “Wait, that was a bad example.  But you know what I mean.  And I promise I won’t drag you along with me everytime.  It will be fine, you’ll see.”

****

They end up driving instead of using the Fast Travel Station when it turns out that the one at their destination is non-operational.  They make the trip in what Zer0 has started calling mentally ‘Gaige silence’, in which Gaige hums or beatboxes or generally is not quiet in the least but also doesn’t expect any response out of him.  He’s a bit alarmed by how this constant background noise is starting to not bother him but he tries not to think about it as he drives them out to the power station.  

Their destination looks like just about any other building on Pandora not owned by Hyperion, run down and unclean.  He and Gaige clear out the residents outside with ease before heading in, Gaige shouting insults at the enemies and praise for her robot in turn.  

Once inside, Gaige plows ahead, robot out, bullets showering sparks on everything they touch.  Zer0 keeps up, but stays a bit behind, picking off big guys and anyone who dares to get close to Gaige with his sniper rifle.  They reach the hiding spot of the first thug rapidly, Gaige not even slowing down as the marauder-garbed man steps out of the opening garage door.  She and DT both move in close, bullets and giant claws flying.  Wot bobs and rolls away, causing Gaige to turn her back to the open door as she pursues.  Just then, a badass psycho steps out of the shadows, racing with axe out at an oblivious Gaige.  Zer0 lines up his sniper rifle and puts two rounds into the psycho’s bobbing head before the monster even takes a swing.  He falls to the ground seconds before Wot, clearly no match for the girl and her robot.  Gaige is about to keep rolling, barely even glancing at the subpar gun Wot had been using, when Zer0 puts away his rifle and grabs her by the shoulder, saying, “Wait.”

“What for?” Gaige cocks her head to the side, metal hand on her waist.  “We know who we are killing and vaguely where they are, what’s the point? And don’t you hate waiting?”

Zer0 sighs,  “There’s a difference/ between haste and decisive/ you do the former.”

“Alright,” she says, eyes narrowing while she nods her head, “but... you know, this is literally what I always do.  What is the problem now?”

Gaige’s shoulders shift as she stows her gun and he realizes he’s still holding on to her.  He yanks his hand away, forcing it down to his side.  Then without looking at her, he says, “You lack awareness/ it makes you vulnerable/ let’s try something new.”

Gaige squints at him, “Wait a minute, is this more of you being worried about me?  You know I can take care of myself, right?”

Zer0 rolls his eyes, “You are very smart/ but when you fight, you don’t think/ I suggest you do.”

“Hey, I think plenty when I fight and just because I’m a little newer at this shit than you are doesn’t give you the right to-”

Zer0 ignores what Gaige is saying and instead pivots her so she can see the badass psycho who’s lying not even two steps from where she is. Then he extends one finger.  Extending the next one, he says, “The skag yesterday,” before extending a third and saying, “Rakks on the way to Flynn’s ship/ Should I continue?”

Gaige’s eyes flick from the psycho to her shoes and back before she lets out a long, shuddering breath.  “Alright, I get your point.  So maybe I’m a  little bit less observant than I should be.  What are you suggesting we do?

“Coordinate.” 

“Don’t we already do that now?”

“No,” Zer0 shakes his head.  He digs around in one of his side pockets for a moment before pulling out an earpiece and holding it out to her, “take this.” 

She takes it out of his hand, the pads of her fingers lingering on his palm for far longer than necessary.  She holds it between two fingers in front of her face, eyes narrowed.  “What is this for?”

“Communication.”

“Well duh, I can see that much.  I’m not blind.  Can’t we just use our ECHOs though?”

“No, this is secure.”

Gaige stares at him before rolling her eyes and shaking her head.  “Fine, Mr. Paranoid, we’ll do it your way,” she says, putting the device on her ear.  “Can you hear me? Like through the mic, I know I’m standing like right next to you still but-”

Gaige’s voice echoes in his ears before he cuts her off.  “Yes,” he says, his head slightly shaking.

“And what exactly are we doing again?”

“First observation/ then we go in for a strike/ while staying mindful.”

“Nonono, I mean what exactly do you want me to do right now?  I’m not such a scrub as to not get what you are going for with your whole ‘actually coordinate’ thing.  You’re sneaky, I’m not.  You’ve been doing this forever and I was attending high school like not even a month ago.  To be totally honest,” she sighs and steps a bit closer, “I  could probably learn a thing or two from you.  So teach me, eh?” she smiles and elbows him in the side.  

He lets the impact jostle him slightly, looking down at her as she keeps standing in her personal space, his stomach knotting.  Then he nods, a quick sharp motion, before pulling out his ECHO and opening the map, holding it out so they both can see.  

She starts to shift closer, before pausing and biting her lower lip.  “Could you... do me a favor and not tell Axton about this, like at all?”  She looks down at her shuffling feet.  “Guy’s been on my case since we got off the train about this stuff and I don’t want to hear the ‘I told you so’ if I don’t have to so... yeah,” she looks up and grins, “Can it be our secret?  You know, like basically everything else about us really?”

Zer0 shakes his head, a small chuckle escaping his lips.  Gaige looks at him expectantly and after a moment, he nods.

“Awesome,” Gaige says as she shuffles closer to get a better look at the map, her back brushing against his stomach.  For a second, he considers wrapping his free hand around her waist to hold her there, close and warm.  He frowns at the impulse and instead uses that hand to point at a spot on the map, “We are here.”

“Yeah,” she nods, eyes rolling, “I do get how maps work.”

He ignores her and moves his finger to a new spot, “Oney.”  Then he points out a spot with cover and a good vantage point a few paces from where they are currently, “You’ll wait over here/ until I’m in position.” He points to a series of pipes in the far corner of the big room that he can scale to get a good angle on their target, “Then we move to kill.”

“Alright,” she nods, “Sounds simple enough.  Let’s do this!”  She readies her SMG and smiles.

Zer0 spares her one final glance before stealthing away to get into position.  He’s in the middle of climbing the pipes just moments later when Gaige’s voice comes through in his helmet, “Good call on the spot, I can totally see Oney’s dudes from here.”  Zer0 doesn’t respond but after a short pause, Gaige just keeps talking.  “So any chance you are finished climbing those pipes?  Because there’s a guy coming over my way and I’m pretty sure I could pop him good-”

“Gaige,” Zer0 grunts out as he pull himself up onto the top of the final pipe high above the room.

“Right, right, you’ll tell me when you’re in position.  And in the meantime I’ll just,” she sighs, “wait.”

Zer0 rolls his eyes and pulls out his sniper rifle, walking carefully along the rounded surface to get a better line of sight on the target.  Once Oney is clearly in his sights, he finally says, “Ready,” and pulls the trigger.  Oney’s head explodes with a satisfying pop, his brain splattering out the back of his skull as he begins to falls.  Zer0 grins and lines up another shot.  There's the gurgle of digistruct as Deathtrap is summoned.  Zer0 takes the second shot and another idiot falls.  The robot plunges in amongst Oney’s men, scattering them and making Zer0’s job more interesting but for once Gaige’s red pigtails aren’t darting through his crosshairs as well.  Instead, she stays back, starting where Zer0 suggested and only moving in when the pack has finally been thinned down to two.  Zer0 picks off one of the remainders just as Deathtrap winds up to swing, revelling in taking the kill from the bot and Gaige kills the other.

“Hehe alright!” Gaige turns to smile up at Zer0’s perch and shouts, causing feedback in his helmet.  He winces and groans and Gaige’s smile turns to a grimace. “Ohh sorry,” she says at nearly a whisper, “But that went awesome right?  I feel that went awesomer than usual.”

“It went well,” Zer0 says, ears ringing a bit as he puts his rifle away.  Taking a deep breath, he leaps down from his pipe and across the open pit, grabbing the far railing at the last moment before pulling himself up and over it.  Gaige looks somewhere between impressed and terrified, mumbling, “Fucking showoff,” as he squats down to pick through the men’s equipment.

“Wait,” Gaige says after a moment of silence, “you said this is a private frequency right?  No one could be listening in?”

“Correct.”  Zer0 picks up a shield and after glancing it over and finding it lacking, tossing it aside.

“So I could, for example,” she says quietly, almost too low for the mic to pick up, “tell you how nice your butt looks when you squat down like that and no one but you would ever know, therefore allowing me to flirt with you while still keeping this whole thing on the down low?”

Zer0 feels his cheeks heat up but he resists the urge to look at Gaige.  Swallowing, he says, “An incorrect use/ of hardware meant for combat/ still, you are correct.”

“Hell yeah,  I think I am going to like these things.  Because let me tell you, your butt is divine and now that we’re... you know, I feel it would be a crime-”.

“Gaige,” Zer0 cuts her off, standing bolt upright and turning around to face her in one fluid motion.

She jumps, her eyes flicking from near the ground to where his head now is.  “Yes?”

For a second, he has no idea why he cut her off or what he’s going to say, only that his ears feel warm and his gut is knotted.  Then he blurts out, fast and uneven, “Now is not the time/ we have two more assassins/ do not lag behind,” before pulling back out his rifle and striding away, the loot on the ground forgotten.

“What did I say?” he hears her mumble as she desummons Deathtrap and chases after him, his long legs giving him an unfair advantage.

They clear the next hallway in relative silence, Gaige clearly making an effort to not just rush off into the fray even in these more favorable conditions of two on five.  They kill the men with ease and quickly reach the room containing the next assassin.  Zer0 is surveying the room as best he can from the doorway and considering stealthing in to get a better angle when Gaige stops trying to peer in as well and says, “So really, what did I do?  Was it something I said about your butt?”

“Gaige, focus,” Zer0 says, eyes never leaving their new targets.

“On your bu- wait no, that’s stupid, you mean focus on the mission, on this next target, right?  Because I can multitask, I’m a great multitasker. Especially if booty appreciation is one of those tasks-”

“Gaige,” Zer0 finally stops his basic reconnaissance and turns to look at her.

“Alright, I’ll focus focus,” she rolls her eyes, “Since you’re obviously not going to answer me anyway.  So... what’s the plan this time?  The room seems pretty open and filled with dudes so I don’t think we can do a repeat of the last strat.”

“I am going to scout/ you stay here and keep watching/ Don’t shoot anyone.”

“Well duh,” she says as he stealths away.  Then she mumbles to herself, trying her best to imitate his voice, “Don’t shoot anyone,” before letting out an exasperated sigh. 

Zer0 ignores her, his rapid, quiet steps making quick work of his patrol through the room.  He finds Reeth on the far end of the room, playing cards with two nomads and surrounded by many antsy looking bandits.  If he didn’t have Gaige here, he’d just snipe Reeth from the exit and disappear but there’s no way he’d do that to her.  He circles back to where he’d left her and steps back through the door before decloaking. 

Gaige jumps a little as she catches sight of him out of the corner of her eye but tries to act as if she didn’t, saying simply, “See anything useful?”

“Not exceptionally,” Zer0 says, still trying to catch his breath.

“So does that mean we’re resorting back to the tried and true, ‘run in guns blazing and hope for the best’ method?” Gaige smiles wide.

“No,” Zer0 shakes his head

“I didn’t think so.  So what do you suggest?”

Zer0 tilts his head, thinking over what he just saw.  “First send in Deathtrap/ we will follow after him/ keeping an eye out.”

“And this is different from my normal strategy how?” Gaige raises her eyebrows and frowns.

“No rolling ahead/ always keep walls at your back/ smart and responsive.”

“So basically use my head and be careful?  Like really, I get the gist; I’m not a special child or anything.  I’m just new to this and make mistakes from time to time.  No need to talk down to me so much geez,” she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, turning her body away from his.

Zer0 says nothing for a moment, the silence between them thick and oppressive.  Then he sighs, almost at his feet.  “Sorry.”

“Wait, really?,” she perks up, turning back to look at him, “You don’t really… apologize ever so, really?”

“Yes, last time went well/ this should go no different/ just not used to this.”

“What, working with noobs?”

He starts to say ‘caring’ but he catches himself and says instead, “Especially noobs.”

“Well good thing I’m a genius then, eh?” she punches him lightly in the arm, “I’ll be caught up in no time.”

Zer0 chuckles, bringing a hand up to cover the spot she just touched. “We’ll see.”

“Yeah yeah counting chickens before they hatch etcetera.”  She waggles a finger at him, “Don’t you dare underestimate me.” 

“I won’t,” he nods, switching his sniper rifle out for an assault rifle. “Let’s go?”

Gaige nods back before waving her arm, shouting,  “Wreck ‘em babe!”  Zer0 cringes but follows after the duo as they roll into the next room.  

Immediately,  two psychos charge at the robot while a nomad follows close behind, shield up.  Across the room, bored looking bandits perk up, pulling out their guns and start spraying bullets in their general direction.  Zer0 quickly evaluates how he would take out all three of the close targets but he holds back, giving Gaige a chance to deal with them herself.  One of the psychos quickly gets slashed down by Deathtrap’s claws while the next gets lit up by Gaige’s electric SMG.  The nomad keeps moving in, his gun firing in little spurts as he steps over the bodies of his fallen companions, Gaige falling back to keep him from getting too close. Then Gaige just fires at his feet and the pillar behind him, the bullets ricocheting around behind the shield and hitting him in the back, effectively flanking him without exposing her own back to the room.  Smart.  As the nomad falls, Gaige shouts, “Suck it, noob,” her voice even louder than before due to the gunfire.  

She doesn't have long to celebrate though as the marauders from the far side of the room finally get within actual striking distance, their bullets tapping at her shield but not bringing them down.  “Get ‘em,” Gaige says but DT is already on his way, pausing only to renew her shields as he goes.  Again Zer0 devises a strategy to eliminate all the current targets and again he holds back.  Gaige will never learn if she constantly has everyone, him included, watching over her.  He stays close though so as to keep evaluating her progress and to help her if things go sideways.

DT tries to run interference but the marauders are too smart to think he’s the real threat out of the three of them.  They quickly outmaneuver him, one even dodging a claw swipe as he rolls past the bot.  Gaige’s eyes flick around as she backs up, her face betraying the frantic thinking going on within her head.  Then a sinister little grin splits her face and she throws a longbow singularity grenade at the ceiling, right above the approaching men.  Immediately, the pact of them are thrown into the air, Gaige cutting them up with her SMG as the grenade sparks and shocks them.  Zer0 just grins.  Clever.

Three of the men don’t survive to hit the ground and as the remainder stands up, Gaige takes a step back only to see him get struck in the back of the head by a buzzaxe that was probably intended for her.  Gaige lets out a nervous little chuckle and her and Zer0 back up as two suicide psychos step out of one of the side doors and rush them, the badass psycho bringing up the rear.  Zer0 bring his gun to bear but still doesn’t fire, hoping he hasn’t overestimated Gaige.  Deathtrap rushes forward to block for his creator while she throws out another singularity grenade, this time aiming for behind the targets.  The suicide psychos get thrown back and to the ground and while the big one is only slightly pulled back, the trajectory of his next axe is way off.  One of the suicide psychos lives just long enough to blow himself up on Deathtrap, the robot letting out a sad gurgle as it disappears while the other never gets off the ground.

Gaige keeps backing up, her eyes flicking from the badass psycho to Zer0 and then back again. “Shouldn’t this guy have been dead like a week ago?  What the fuck are you doing?  Napping?” she shouts a little too loud for the mic over the surrounding gunfire.

“Watching you work,” says just as even as ever.

Gaige turns to look at him, gun still firing in the psycho’s general direction.  “Really?”

“Yes.”

She glances back at the psycho and then back at him, eyes wide.  “Really really?”

“Yes,” Zer0 says, head nodding for added emphasis.

Gaige mumbles a curse under her breath before shouting, “Well is it any good for you?”

After a short pause where Zer0 considers his options, he decides to go with the truth.  “More enjoyable than expected.”

Gaige’s cheeks redden, her eyes flicking from the target to Zer0 and back.  “Was that... flirting? Are you flirting with me right now?”

Zer0 pauses, the fire of guns filling the empty space for him as his stomach does a little flip. “Y-yes?”

Gaige sighs and shakes her head. “God, you’re awful at this.  Any chance you’re going to help me with this guy?”

“If you insist.”  Three short bursts later and the psycho is dead, leaving only Reeth and his nomad entourage closing in on them.  Reeth clears the distance with one leap, landing on the badass psycho’s chest with a sickening crack of breaking ribs.

“You are such a little shit you know that right?” Gaige says, backing away from the deranged looking assassin as she throws a grenade at the ceiling again. “Warning me that a room is going to be tough and then making me do it all on my own?  What the hell is that about?” The grenade goes off, flipping Reeth into the air while only barely shifting his heavier companions. 

Zer0 stealths, sneaking around behind one of the nomads as he lands and cutting off his head in one fluid motion.  “You did well before/ greater challenge was needed/ how else will you learn?”

“Fine,” Gaige grumbles, ricocheting bullets off the ground and lighting the remaining nomad on fire, “You’re still a boob though.”

Zer0 slashes the distracted nomad across the back.  He tries to turn to slam his spiked shield into Zer0 but Gaige unloads her SMG into his exposed back and he finally falls. “I’ll warn you next time,” Zer0 says, switching back to his sniper rifle as Reeth continues to chase Gaige.

“You better!” she shouts, still backing away from Reeth.

Zer0 has just lined up his sights for one final satisfying kill when Reeth’s brains blow out the back of his head with an accompanying spark.  “Fucking owned,” Gaige fist pumps as the target falls to the ground, still jittering from the electricity.

Zer0 lowers his gun, an odd silence falling over the once loud room.  “That was a nice shot,” he says, tilting his head slightly and emoting a ?, “when did you have time to learn?/ you’re not a soldier.”

“Well, to be honest, I think that was like half luck.  But you know that combat sim arcade game, Tears for Tarnor?  The one with the light guns?  I might have just played that, like all the time back home.  It was one of my faves,” she pauses, tapping a finger to her chin. “Looking back on it though, going to the arcade was a way better life choice than finishing my english homework.”

Zer0’s body goes rigid at the mention of the game before he forces it back into a more nonchalant posture, reloading his gun just to have something to do.  “I know of it.”

Gaige looks at him, squinting her eyes, “You’re not…. no… no way.  I don’t know why I didn’t figure this out sooner.  The top three slots on the galactic leader board for Tears for Tarnor, that’s you, right?”

“No,” Zer0 keeps fussing with his gun, refusing to meet Gaige’s eyes. 

“Yes it is.  I’m almost positive they’re a god damm haiku, it is so you.  Oh my god, you’re a nerd.  I knew it.  Can’t slip a Yugioh reference past me,” she waves her index finger at him before starting to reload her gun.  Then eyes squinted, she turns to look at him.  “Wait, why do you waste your time on something so below your skill level anyway?”

Zer0 sighs, “Once I had the top/ I would hate to let it slide/ a small frivolance.”

“God, I’m going to have watch you play sometime.  What’s your screen clear time? Like in the seconds, right?”

Zer0 just shakes his head, “You’ve seen me do more/ feats most men could not dream of/ that game is nothing.”

“Yeah but what it is is relatable.”  Zer0 emotes a “?” at her so she continues, “I’m never going to be able to do half the ninja shit you can do but what I can do is play a stupid video game.  Basically, this brings your awesome down to a level us mere mortals can comprehend,  yah dig?”

“Alright,” Zer0 nods.  “Maybe someday.”

“Awesome,” she says, grinning.  

And then before he’s even realized it, he’s smiling too, just a little.  He’d thought for a moment earlier, during the fight, that she might have been actually quite mad at him, that he’d miscalculated her response and wouldn’t be able to make it up to her.  But now here they are, laughing and talking about games and making plans so obviously she’s not mad, not really at least.

“Oh and could you keep an eye out for ammo?   Somebody,”  she gives him a pointed, narrow-eyed look ,  “made me use most of mine.”

Okay, so maybe she’s still a little mad.  Zer0 sighs but when they find the assassin’s ammo stores in the next room, he makes sure to only take the sniper rounds which Gaige seems to appreciate. 

“Do you mind if we take a sec actually?” she asks once her guns are full, waving her arm to summon DT before he even has a chance to answer.  “No one’s ever forced DT to de-digistruct before so I should probably check and see if he’s-”  She stops mid-sentence as the robot appears, making a disgusted noise.

“Not good,” Zer0 agrees, looking the robot over with an inquisitive eye.  It doesn’t look particularly damaged but Zer0 knows just enough about robotics to tell that the bot is in need of repairs.  The ozone smell leaking off it is a dead giveaway.

For a minute,  Gaige just runs her hands over various parts of her robot and mutters to herself.   Without looking away from her inspection, she says, “Oh you noticed that too?  Guess that makes sense really.”  She frowns.  “Well, DT’s not going be good for much more than a short term distraction until I get him back to Sanctuary for repairs.”  She turns to Zer0, “Luckily, we’ve only got one of these weak ass assassin guys left anyway so we should be fine.  Let’s go get the bastard.”

Zer0 nods and Gaige waves her arm again, banishing DT for the moment.  They quickly reach the room that their information tells them holds Rouf.  Gaige walks up the stairs to the room without a second thought only to have to crouch down once she realizes that there is a pack of psychos right inside the doorway.

Zer0 squats down next to her, glancing over the top of the stairs to see what he can see from that vantage point.  It unfortunately isn’t very much.  “I’ll be right back,” he says then cloaks, heading out to scout.  The composition of forces in this room is much the same as the last: nomads, suicide psychos, and marauders all pacing around or attempting to converse with each other to varying degrees of success.  He doesn’t see Rouf but since there aren’t any more real rooms left in the building that they haven’t shot up, he’d guess Rouf is hiding in the attached ammo closet behind the big shutter.  They’ll just have to get his attention and, in Zer0’s experience, nothing grabs someone’s attention faster than the sound of their fighting force being decimated by small arms fire in the next room.

When he comes back, Gaige is grinning at him and idly tossing a grenade into the air and then catching it again like its tennis ball.  “What are you doing?” he says, voice cautious.  

“Not shooting anyone, that’s for sure.”  She’s still grinning but he’s starting to think he might not like this particular grin.  “Anyway, what’s it like in there?”

“Stage 93” he says, pulling out his pistol and making sure it’s fully loaded.

“In Tears?” When Zer0 nods, she stops tossing the grenade and looks away from him.  After an awkward moment, she breaks the silence.  “To be honest, I’ve never made it quite that far.”  She looks up at him, a sheepish smile on her face, “Sorry.”

He’s going to say something sarcastic and biting about how she’s a noob, but he reconsiders it and after a moment says instead, “That is a real shame/ we’ll just have to run it then/ you’ve missed the real game.”  And even though it makes him feel a bit self-conscious, it was probably the better thing to say really.

“Hey, there is a lot of good stuff before stage 60 and… wait a minute,” Gaige’s annoyance peters out as she thinks over what he’s just said. “Is that a... date then?” she says, dropping her voice to a whisper so only the mic can pick it up.

Zer0 nods his head slightly and Gaige smiles, big and beaming.  Then she looks from him to the grenade and back, her expression conflicted before finally pulling the pin and tossing it at the ceiling in the next room.  “Sorry,” she shrugs, “but even after that you still really deserve this.”

Zer0 emotes a “:|”, saying, “You’re still mad about earlier.”  And it is not a question, not at all.

“Maybe just a little.  This,” she says, throwing another grenade over her shoulder, “should make us even though.  This and that date if you want to be extra sure.”

He tilts his head towards the room, glancing at the growing chaos out of the corner of his eye.  “All mine then?”

“That is sort of the point, yeah.”

He emotes a huge smile at Gaige, saying, “Good,” before he dives into the fray, pistol drawn and sword at the ready.  As he clears the threshold, a suicide psycho makes to dash past him and Zer0 clotheslines him, his gun arm coming up to fill his head with bullets with the same motion.  He dies before he hits the floor and Zer0 laughs, low and cold.  

He knows Gaige intended this as an act of revenge, filling a room with chaos before sending him in to deal with it on his own but really it’s a bit of a treat.  Carefully taking out droves of weak enemies before even one notices him can be fun but those same enemies, ready for a fight and moving erratically, well, it still isn’t hard really but it is a bit more of a challenge and Zer0 loves his challenges.  The thing is, he’s liking working with the other vault hunters (as strange and out of his norm as it is), but it’s nice to able to let go, to know that every single person in the room but him is marked to die by his hands.  His movements are quick and his thoughts are quicker, ideas becoming execution in the blink of an eye.  Two shots to the head, dodge, sever the leg, stealth, headshot; the actions blurr as targets fall and he sinks into a groove.  

He’s cleared most of the first pack, and more bandits are closing in when he notices the gurgle of digistruct, a flit of red hair and the distinctive pull to his gut he gets whenever he thinks about Gaige. “I thought you weren’t helping,” he says as he cuts off a marauder's head, a bit of a laugh to his tone

“Oh I’m not, it’s just,” she pauses and he’s not looking at her as she speaks but he can imagine the cute little irritated face she’s making, “okay, so your ego definitely doesn’t need the fluffing its about to get but honestly, I’m here to watch you kill some scrubs because you’re actually unimaginably hot, alright?”

For a second, Zer0 stops thinking about the targets and he stops thinking about what he’s doing, the idea that his work could be sexually attractive to anyone sinking into his brain slowly.  Impressive, sure; terrifying, definitely but hot is a new one and something he has no idea how to deal with.  He feels his guts knot and he’s lost in thought that he nearly gets smacked by an approaching nomad’s shield.  He dodges and stealths at the last moment, the shield just barely missing it’s mark.

“Oh sorry.  Do you need me to shut up?” She says, concern obvious in her tone. “Or just not mention the sexiness thing?” After a moment adding, “I think you were doing better before I started talking so if you need me to stop talking-”

Zer0 pops another guy in the head.  “If you’re not helping/ try and stay out of the way/ for your own safety.”

“Yeah, yeah that is what Deathtrap is for.  He’s a distraction so I can find a good perch to watch you from.  Worst case scenario, I’ll kill some dudes but it looks like they really just want to murder you so it should be fine.  I think you’ve made them angry or something.”  

“Good,” Zer0 says as he stabs one in the gut.  He keeps fighting as she dashes across the opposite edge of the room though his attention is a bit divided.  Only one marauder is observant enough to peel away and chase after her and he’s rewarded for it by DT literally blowing up on him.  After what feels like much longer than it actually is, Gaige finally reaches the highest point in the room and after a moment, sits herself down to watch.

And Zer0 can’t help but be acutely aware of her.  He generally likes an audience if he can get one but Gaige’s interest is very different and he knows it.  He tries not to think about it though, instead focusing on the rush of blood singing through his veins as he works and the simple satisfaction of each and every kill.  It works to a degree and he’s back in a groove by the time Rouf and his badass nomad backup finally decide to show up.  He’s just cut a psycho in half when he hears the rattle of the shutter opening.  

Instantly he stealths, hoping he can manage to catch this final batch of unworthy opponents by surprise for a spectacular finish.  With quiet steps her sneaks around to behind one of the nomads and cuts off his head.  Blood begins gushing from the stump as he restealths and carries the momentum into a roll.  The second nomad is just starting to react to the death of the first, his gun and shield at the ready when Zer0 pops up, slicing the nomad neatly in half.  Again he disappears and dashes, wet slap of the nomad’s insides hitting the concrete the only sign that anything has happened.  Rouf is faster than the nomads were but it only takes Zer0 a moment to closes the distance between them.   A shocked look of horror is only just dawning on his face as he turns around and sees Zer0’s handiwork.  Zer0 drinks it in before stabbing him through the throat, saying, “Foolish assassin/ a title you can’t have earned/ since you died so fast.”  He watches Rouf sputter for one final moment before twisting his sword and slicing through one side of Rouf’s neck, flicking some of the extra blood off his blade as he carries the motion through.  

He’s chuckling to himself as he puts his blade away when Gaige shouts, “Holy crap,” reminding him that he’s being watched.  He glances up at where she is seated, suddenly self-conscious.  Her eyes are wide and he’s not any good at people but even he’s pretty sure that what he just did wasn’t anything close to sexy.  

She’s silent for a moment, scrunching up her nose in thought before saying,“That was… well, nauseating.  I mean, you literally just cut a few of those guys in half.  I think most people would agree that’s pretty gross.”  Zer0 feels his shoulders tense and he considers stealthing and making a break for it but he doesn’t.  After a moment, Gaige adds, “But it was also really badass and strangely hot?  The way you move is just... damn.”  And then she bites her lower lip and Zer0 feels his face flush.  He glances away quickly but he’s knows he’s not going to forget that face anytime soon.  

“Anyway,” she says, getting to her feet and starting to use the ladder, “I was thinking -” Whatever the rest of Gaige’s sentence was is lost as her foot slips on a rung and she starts to fall.  Zer0 is there in a second, catching Gaige in his arms and pulling her in close to his chest before she can fall even a few feet.

“Hey,” she blinks up at him, stunned for a moment before breaking into a blush as she looks up into his visor, “thanks for uh, catching me.  I would have been aching all over if I’d hit the ground.”

Zer0 adjusts his hold on her, her warm, soft curves pushing into his chest as he does so.  Her face is very close to his, he realizes absently, his stomach doing a flip as the thought sinks in.  “You need to be more careful,” he says, voice low.

“Yeah,” she says, obviously not listening as she puts a hand on the side of his helmet and starts to close the distance between them.   She’s going to kiss me , he thinks, somewhere between nervous and pleased .  Then he remembers where they are, how even though there is no one left alive in the whole building, there are probably still cameras running and he drops her without a second thought.

Gaige groans in stunned pain as she hits the ground.  After a minute, she moans ,“I can’t believe you just did that asshole.”  She rolls onto her side, touching her own butt gingerly and hissing at the contact.  “I think you broke my butt.”

“Sorry,” Zer0 says, purposely looking away as he reloads his Maggie. “Can you still walk?”

Gaige gets to her feet, making displeased noises as she does. Then, looking at him, eyes squinted, she says, ”Yeah of course I can still walk?  You’re tall and all but it wasn’t that far.”

“Then you’re fine.”

“Great,” she rolls her eyes before huffing out under her breath, “You really should care more about my ass.”

Zer0’s head snaps up to look at her, his eyes growing wide as he stares at her in silence.

Gaige’s eyes also go wide as her face turns beet red.  “That... came out wrong.  I didn’t mean, well I kinda did but not like that...well maybe even a little like that but-”

“Please stop,” Zer0 says, his face getting warm as he tries very hard to not think about the implication of what Gaige is saying.

She cockes her head to the side, giving Zer0 an appraising look.  “Stop... talking?” She seems to consider the request until a moment later a look of realization dawns on her face and she smiles. “Oh my god, you're embarrassed, aren’t you?”

“No,” Zer0 snaps back way too quickly.

“You are.  You so totally are.  You’re like blushing under that helmet, aren’t you?”

“No,” Zer0 tries again but even he thinks his protests sound weak at this point.

Gaige seems to be ignoring him, a look of glee on her face as she keeps talking.  “And earlier when I complimented your butt and then when I said you fought sexy, you were embarrassed those times too, right?  You’re like a hell of a lot less together under that helmet than you’d like us to think, aren’t you?”

“Only about you,” he grumbles out unthinkingly.

Her eyes open up wide, her cheek pinkening, “That’s so cute, holy shit.  I’m almost not mad about the whole you dropping me thing anymore, that is how cute that is.  You should really add a blushing emote to your projector, I think I deserve to know that sort of thing”.

Zer0 shakes his head, “I’m not sure that’s wise/ I am sorry I dropped you/ but I had no choice.”

“Oh you had a choice... but I know what you mean.  I... probably shouldn’t have tried to kiss you either.  You said we need to keep this on the down low so I shouldn’t have let myself get uh,” she looks him up and down quick before she continues, “distracted and forget.  You still totally fucked up though.  I think you owe me at least one more favor. Maybe two since you had way too much fun killing these assholes.”

“You noticed?

Gaige gestures at the carnage around them, “It’s kinda hard to miss, yeah.”

Zer0 sighs.  “Will we never be even then?”

“Not if you keep fucking up this bad.”  She raises her eyebrows and then seeing his shoulders slump, smacks him in the arm and smiles, “I’m sure you’ll get the hang of this eventually.  Don’t worry about it.” 

Zer0 is not sure she’s right but he hopes she is.  Not that being in Gaige’s debt is so bad  (at least so far) just that he hates being not good at things.  In the past, he’d never considered a lack of social skills a failing but now, with his teammates and Gaige in particular, he’s starting to wish he could fake sociable at the very least. He nods, “Fine, what is the task?

“Okay so you know how the FTS here is broken?  Well, I’m betting I can fix it easy and your punishment will be to stick around and keep me company while I do it.  No stealthing off and driving away, no matter how bored you get, deal?

Zer0’s pretty sure he should be more annoyed by the whole idea of sitting around and doing nothing but since he’ll also be talking to Gaige in a mostly secure building while he gets to watch her work, instead it’s… tempting.  He’s starting to realize to his chagrin that liking people distorts your opinion about what is a waste of time and what isn’t.  He sighs and nods his agreement. “Deal.”

****

A half and hour later, Gaige is finally putting the finishing touches on her repairs, a smile on her face as she attempts to explain exactly what she’s done. She had been completely right that she could fix it, even if it had taken a bit longer then expected and a few parts from both their car and Deathtrap to do so.  Zer0, on the other hand, is trying to pay attention but can’t seem to focus on the intricacies of the physics right now.  It’s not because he’s not interested in what she’s doing because though he’d be loathe to admit it, he really is.  He knows just enough about Fast Travel Stations to understand that everything Gaige is doing is way over his head and he can’t help but be impressed.  Zer0 realizes, as time slides by, that it’s not what she’s doing that keeps distracting him, its  her .  

It all started when he did a sweep of the entryway for cameras or bugs and finding none, realized that they were officially alone which meant that he could just relax and enjoy her company.  But of course he hadn’t.  His thoughts had quickly strayed from Gaige’s explanation of what she was doing to all of Gaige’s obvious advances over the course of their time together that day, from staring at his butt to biting her lip to her attempt to kiss him.  And while a part of him continued to find this whole thing stupid, the rest of him was flustered and shockingly, still slightly aroused by the just memories of her unabashed interest in him.  It made him want to reciprocate her forwardness, to have her close to him now that he was sure no one was watching.  Also, he figured he owed her a little open interest after how distant and awkward he’d acted through this whole thing. So that’s how he decided he would kiss her (or more accurately, let her kiss him) and therefore ended up spending the whole time she was working anxiously waiting for an opportunity to try.

“Annnd done!” Gaige says, snapping Zer0 back to the present as she pulls her goggles off her eyes and back to their normal location.

Zer0 watches as she pack her tools back up into her lunch box, her back still to him.  As he watches, he feels his whole body grow tense, tightly wound and ready to strike.  He feels predatory (which is not uncommon for him) but also off balanced and nervous (which is).  Oblivious to his intentions, Gaige runs the back of her hand along her forehead, probably smudging grease above her eyebrows.  Zer0 feels like this should logically make him less nervous but somehow it doesn’t.

Letting out a breath, Zer0 steels himself and says, “You wanted a kiss/ I have swept for cameras/ you can have it now.”

“That’s alright,” Gaige says, not even turning around, “you don’t have to humor-” Gaige stops talking as Zer0 spins her around and yanks her into his personal space.  Her eyes grow wide.  “Oh, you really mean it then?”

Zer0 nods and leans over so that the forehead of his helmet is touching hers, their faces very close.  He swallows.  “Yes.”

“Oh,” she says, voice small.  She blushes and looks into his visor with a piercing gaze like she can see him.  He knows she can’t but his stomach clenches as he meets her eyes anyway.

“I’m just going to-” she mumbles before putting her hands on his shoulders, closing her eyes and bringing her lips to about where his lips are.

Zer0 just stands there and even though all he can feel of this “kiss” is the clench of her unsymmetrical hands on his shoulders, he still feels like his heart is in his throat all the same.  He spends another moment bent over and nervous and stupidly wanting to kiss her back and then Gaige is pulling away, the kiss already over.

Before she can get more than a few inches away and without him really making a conscious decision to do so, he moves his hand from her shoulder and up to cup her cheek, his thumb just touching her bottom lip.  She stops pulling away, a startled “Wha?” making it out of her lips only to be cut off as he starts to slowly brush his thumb along her lip, the action a pale imitation of what he wishes he could do to her.  The blush on Gaige’s cheeks darkens and after a moment, she closes her eyes and lets her mouth fall open a bit, her hands still clutching at his shoulders in an attempt to keep him close.  Zer0 tries very hard to not think about how those lips would feel on his as their warmth sinks through his glove and into his thumb.  

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Zer0 pulls his hand away, brushing her cheek as he goes.  Gaige stays transfixed on the spot for a moment before opening up her eyes, a dopey smile on her face. “Okay, I think we might be even now because yeah,” she bites her bottom lip, “wow.  I mean, it was a bit weird but also like super hot.  Damn.”  Gaige brings her flesh hand up to  touch where his thumb had just been and Zer0 gulps.  An awkward silence falls as Gaige grins to herself.  After a moment she says, tone tentative, “Sooo... was that like kissing kissing for you?  Is the helmet a perma on thing?”  Her eyes snap up to about where his eyes are, her hands waving emphatically, “Because that’s not at all a problem if it is.  I can so deal with that.  The helmet is a good look for you really-”

Zer0 cocks his head as Gaige starts to ramble, embarrassed and unsure of what to say.  

There’s a part of him (a stupid part) that longs to actually kiss Gaige someday while the rest of him knows what a bad idea that is.  No one has seen his face for years and how little is known about him across the galaxy is something he prides himself on.  Though Gaige already knows more than anyone else alive, he’s still not eager to keep opening up, making both himself more vulnerable and her a more tempting target for his enemies.  He absently rubs his thumb against his index finger, where the warmth of her lips still lingers.  He licks his lips, imaging what hers would feel like and sighs.  “This is a helmet/ not my face, perhaps someday/ you will get to see.”

Gaige stops rambling as he finally speaks, a smile turning up the corner of her lips with each word.  “Alright,” she nods, a wicked little grin on her face,  “I’ll look forward to that then.”

Zer0 nods and wonders, with something between interest and horror, how long it will be before he gives in to temptation.

****

They take the newly fixed fast travel station back to Sanctuary, Zer0 trusting that Gaige has ironed out all the kinks without a thought.  He’s just started inputting the code when Gaige laces her fingers through his free hand.  When he looks down from his task to their joined hands, Gaige says sheepishly, “I’ll let go when we hit Sanct.  I’m just not sure when I’ll get to do this again, alright?”

Zer0 shakes his head in disbelief but he also squeezes Gaige’s hand before she can go to pull it away.  Gaige squeezes back and Zer0 turns to emote a smile at her before finally imputing the last number and sending them on their way.

Gaige, true to her word, lets go the second they’re corporal.  Zer0 tries to ignore how empty and cold his hand feels in her absence.  She’s halfway out of the station before she turns around and says, “I’m going to go see if I can weasel some free parts off of Zed.  Can you go report in back at HQ?”

Zer0 nods and Gaige says, “Awesome”, before bouncing away without another word.  His eyes follow her as she goes, then, shaking his head and grinning, he heads off to talk to Roland.

Zer0’s halfway up the stairs of Crimson Raiders HQ when he runs into Sal and Axton.  He swears he can hear Axton mumbling something about “Finally” which he cuts off the second he sees Zer0, instead saying, “Hey, you and Gaige want to join us for a drink at Moxxi’s? We think a bit of a celebration is in order.” 

Zer0 cocks his head, unsure of what they could possibly be celebrating.  Maybe something exciting happened while he and Gaige were out.  He decides to answer the part he understands instead of asking questions.  “Gaige is not around/ she needs to fix up Deathtrap/ I can still join you.”

Axton looks to Salvador who shrugs, “We’ll just have to buy her a beer later.”

Axton nods, “Alright, let’s get this show on the road then”

Five minutes late, the three of them are sitting at the bar at Moxxi’s, each with an open beer in front of them.  Zer0 had tried to convince them that there was no way he’d drink his but to no avail.  

After an awkward minute where Sal and Axton make faces at each other and sip their beers, Axton finally asks, “So... how did things go?”

Zer0 rolls his eyes.  “No challenge.  As expected.”

Axton squints at him like he thinks Zer0 is particularly dense but pushes on anyway. “No, I meant like how did things go with Gaige?”

Zer0 cocks his head.  He knows he and Gaige are an odd team but he didn’t think the others found her to be anything but competent.  ”Everything was fine/ despite her lack of training/ she’s a fine ally.”

Axton growls in frustration as he shakes his head.  “No, I mean, you know…”

“Did you guys have good sex?” Sal finally cuts in, obviously sick of Axton’s indirect tactics.

Zer0 freezes and then realizing that it’s about the worst thing that he could do in this instance, tries to look casual instead.  “What? No,” he sputters out.

“Aw well, she is eighteen,” Salvador says, slapping him on the back, “just give her some time. I’m sure she’ll figure it out.”

Zer0 looks from Axton to Sal and shakes his head, cheeks flushing as his mind races.  “No, I mean just no/ We’re not together at all/ that has not happened.”

Axton frowns.  “Oh come on.  We know you’re Mr. Secret and all but we’re your friends and we’re happy for you two.”  He takes a swig of his beer before he adds, “Confused about Gaige’s taste, but happy for both of you.”

Sal glares at Axton before leaning conspiratorially into Zer0’s space.  “Don’t listen to him, I think you are a very handsome robot.  Gaige is lucky to have you.”

“We’re not together,” Zer0 insists, unsure of what else he can say to convince them.

Axton rolls his eyes.  “At least try to come up with a convincing lie if you’re going to lie to us.  Everyone saw her leave with you yesterday.  And an hour and a half to clear out some cut rate Hyperion assassins?  Not likely.”

Zer0 had really been hoping that no one would have noticed either of those thing.  He reaches for a lie, wishing for once that he was better at manipulating people. “Coincidences/ today was a fast travel/ before was nothing.”

“You really expect us to believe that?” Axton sighs and takes a swig of his beer.  “I’ve seen the way she looks at you-”

Moxxi chuckles from her spot on the other side of the bar.  “Oh, he’s not lying about the sex, sugar.  I can guarantee that.”

“What? How do you know?” Sal looks from Zer0 to Moxxi and back, eyebrow raised.

“Believe me,” Moxxi says, “I know these things.”  Zer0 is just about to let out a sigh of relief when Moxxi continues, “Not saying they don’t want to... just that they haven’t yet.”

“Taking it slow then, eh?” Axton smiles a knowing smile, “Probably for the best, what with how old she is.  Just don’t wait too long, life expectancies out here on the border worlds are not what you’d call lengthy.”

Zer0 is off his stool before he even realizes it, shaking his head and mumbling, “This is quite hopeless/ all my words fall on deaf ears/ I am leaving now.”

He faintly hears Salvador say, “Do you think he didn’t want us to know?” as he stomps out of the bar but he doesn’t turn around.  

Instead, he runs to an abandoned section of Sanctuary and climbs up to a roof where he can be alone with his thoughts.  Once his heart finally stops pounding in his chest, the realization that his reaction was the worst possible one starts to sink in.  Before Pandora and Gaige, he would have laughed in the face of anyone who thought he could be attached to anyone, wouldn’t have cared what anyone thought.  Now that he does care though, he’s finding it a lot less easy to maintain his aura of nonchalance, especially under pressure.

He spends the next half an hour beating himself up for getting so emotional and wondering what he can do to triage the situation.  He eventually decides that while things are not great, they could be worse.  For one, that fact that Salvador and Axton noticed something was up does not mean anyone else, other than Moxxi has.  They are two of the people who spend the most time with him and Gaige so if anyone was going to notice the slight signs of their interest in each other, it was them.   Secondly, even though he did not do a great job of disproving that he and Gaige are together, he did not confirm it either.  He’s willing to accept ambiguity over confirmation any day.   Thirdly, and against his better judgement, Zer0 trusts both men. Not much, but enough so that he’s less uncomfortable with the idea of them knowing this secret than is logical.  Worst case scenario, he thinks he can trust them to keep quiet about it.

That all figured out, he turns his attention to what he should do about his one loose end, Moxxi.  He could kill her easily which would assure her silence but he’s not so sure he needs to.  Something he is sure of is that if any of his fellow vault hunters ever found out what he’d done, they would collectively end him.  The ire of two sirens is not worth the small chance that Moxxi will gossip to strangers about him and Gaige.  

He’s feeling a little less miserable about his screw up when out of nowhere, Gaige’s voice comes through his com. “Is this thing still on at your end? Can you hear me?”

Zer0 shakes his head but doesn’t say anything.  He’s not in no mood to chat and he can’t believe he forgot to take his com unit back before he parted ways with Gaige.

After a moment of extended silence where he can almost hear her breath, she says slowly, “Hey Zer0, you there?  I just wanted to talk.  Can you even hear me?” pausing between each phrase like she’s thinking it over.

Zer0 rolls his eyes, saying, “It’s five seven five/ it’s such a simple format/ you need more practice,” before he’s realized it. 

“Gotcha!” Gaige laughs, “I had a feeling you were there.  Oh my god, I totally got you.” The last bit is barely audible between her chuckles.

“You did,” Zer0 feels the corner of his lips turn up in spite of himself.

“Anyway, I was just calling to check and see if my tech works and it totally does.”

Zer0’s head snaps up and he emotes a “?” without thinking. 

“Also, I  may not be able to give you back your original com unit since I  may have destroyed it just a little bit when I was figuring out what made it tick.  My new one works perfectly fine though so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Zer0’s eyes widen.  Gaige had been out of his sights for about forty minutes and somehow she had already reverse engineered his tech which was designed specifically to resist such attempts.  He’s pretty sure that if he wasn’t so impressed, he’d be really worried right now.  “Please don’t break my stuff/ this line is not for chatting/ I’ll come get that now.”  The second he finishes speaking, he’s already off the roof, deftly working his way towards Crimson Raider’s HQ. 

“No way,” Gaige says, “The com unit you gave my earlier might not have been meant for this but that one’s broken.  Mine, on the other hand, was pretty much made exclusively for this so,” she blows a raspberry.  “Also, it’s my tech now, I made it so I’m not going to hand it over for no reason.”

Zer0 pauses, considering how upset she would be if he stole the tech and sighs, “Fine.”  After a moment, he keeps heading back towards HQ but not as quickly.  Maybe there would be some work to take his mind off of his mistakes.

“Look on the bright side, now we can talk whenever we want and no one will know.  I talk to myself all the time anyway.  Well me or DT but I’m not sure he counts.”

“How are the repairs?”

“They are going really good,” Gaige says, enunciating each syllable. 

Zer0 can hear her grinning but he can’t resist finishing the set.  “How are they really?”

“Ehhhhhhh, your tech took way longer than I thought it would to figure out.  DT’s… not on fire anymore so there’s that.”

Zer0 lets out a quiet chuckle.

“I should probably get back to that actually.  Before I poof though, I just wanted you to know that I actually had a pretty nice time, you know for a not real date date where we... killed people.  We should do another one sometime, maybe with less violence.  But not like for a week or two so people don’t catch on.”

Zer0 wonders if he should tell her about Sal and Axton or maybe Moxxi but decides against it.  No need to worry her over possibly nothing.  “We should,” he agrees, feeling the last bit of his bad mood slip away.  Everything was going to be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me so long to write. Despite my slow turnover rate, there is still a lot more of this story in the works.


	3. Attachment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Vault Hunters get closer to getting to kill Jack while Zer0 keeps growing fonder of Gaige.

And everything was okay, for awhile.  Gaige finds out about Sal and Axton and Moxxi almost immediately but aside from slapping him upside the head in a rare moment they are alone together, she doesn’t seem to mind.  She even agrees to keep trying to be secretive in hopes of not making the situation any worse than it already is and Zer0 is appreciative.  

He doesn't end up having much time to worry about it though. Soon after that, the hunt for Jack picks up, to his infinite glee. Some solid information about the vault key comes through which means that he's one step closer to putting his blade through Jack's face (which pleases him greatly) and that there’s less time to kill (which he’s generally in favor of as well). Each mission brings new challenges and new information and Zer0’s nearly vibrating with excitement from all of it until out of nowhere, they get betrayed and things go south.  Zer0's emotions flick from anger at himself for not sensing something was off, for not kicking Angel off his coms the moment she first spoke to him to a desperate impulse to get him and Gaige out of there, fuck everyone else.

An emergency extraction for two ends up not being necessary when Sanctuary is saved by a siren fueled miracle.  He and his teammates do end up getting separated from the raiders but after a tense, cold day where he can't talk his teammates out of listening to Angel again and his eyes keep drifting over to Gaige in lingering worry, they do make it back to regroup.  Angel promises them the vault key for real this time and every bone in Zer0 says not to trust her but he's not in charge and doesn't get to make those calls so before he knows it, a new set of missions begins and all he can do is wait for the inevitable fallout. He works in the meantime, running errands and clearing bandit camps whenever he can, running missions for the doomed vault key quest whenever it’s asked of him.

And over the course of all this, he and Gaige don’t get much time alone but they make the best out of what they do.  Stolen moments with hands running along backs, pecks to helmets and quickly grasped and then released hands become a day to day part of his life.  

Gaige tries to stop openly paying attention to Zer0 in public and instead contents herself with flirting more secretively.  Not a single mission they’re both on goes by without a low mumbled come on or joke coming through Zer0’s secondary com, often startling a chuckle out of him.  He scolds Gaige for it but he barely means it and both of them know it.  

Even when they’re not both in the field, Gaige will randomly start talking about DT or the mission she’s on or other assorted banal things, effectively making it so that even on days when they barely see each other, they still stay in touch.  Zer0 feels he should be annoyed by the consistent disruption of his normally quiet headspace but he’s not, instead finding that he looks forward to them.  He tries very hard not to think about what that could possibly mean.

When the day comes that they're finally ready to siege the bunker, Zer0's still expecting another trap but he can't help hoping that he may get to blow up some of Jack’s stuff along the way anyway.  They all agree to come along, none of them wanting to be sitting back at base while everyone else is out having fun.  Lilith and Mordecai see them off, clearly irate to be stuck watching over Sanctuary but their loyalty to Roland keeping them there anyway.  Zer0’s eye’s meet Gaige’s right before they head out and maybe she knows him well enough to know he’s a little on edge because she smiles at him big and winks just before the fast travel spirits them away.  And he doesn’t think this is any less of a trap but he smiles inspite of himself anyway.  

The siege is going well at first.  Jack has lots of guns and robots but they're nothing compared to five vault hunters and a monster.  Unfortunately to get through a bit of security and for this whole thing to work, one of their group had to agree to temporarily use Jack’s voice in place of their own.  Zer0 thinks it probably should have been him, but Sal had offered so enthusiastically that everyone had sighed with relief and let him take it.  Of course, his new found voice hasn't kept him quiet; he’s still shouting and cursing constantly as he fights, seeming to get a kick out of the shit he is “making” Jack say.  Zer0’s a bit annoyed to hear Jack’s smug voice ringing out across the battlefield, joyful and loud but even he can admit that the bits where “Jack” curses in spanish are amusing.

Zer0 knows something is off the moment it happens.  They’ve just passed a field of mortars and are through a third set of gates. He’s scanning the battlefield, picking off targets at range when out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gaige go down, just a little yelp over the ECHO and then nothing. Without a thought, he drops a decoy and takes off, heading for her position.  She’s never this quiet when she’s shot.  Under normal circumstances, she wails and moans like she’s dying so the silence is not a good sign.  The possibility that she’s already dead flits through his mind but he shakes it off and keeps running.

When he finds her, her breathing is shallow and she’s got her human hand over a wound in her gut.  Deathtrap is hovering nearby, shooting lasers at anything that dares to pass by.  He squats down next to her and uncloaks, setting one hand over the one covering her wound and without thinking about it, one over her metal hand resting on the ground.

“I have you,” he says, lying through his teeth because there is no way he can get her up like this.  She needs medical attention.  She needs... “Maya, to my position,” he says, even as ever, into his ECHO device.

“Oh hey,” Gaige mumbles, her eyes just opening, “It’s you.” She smiles and then winces.  “Just the guy I wanted to see right now, what with me being on death’s door and all.”

“You’re fine,” he says, applying a little more pressure to her wound.

“Liar,” she says, strained.  “I appreciate it though.”  She wiggles her metal fingers, glances down at them and then smiles.  “That’s really sweet.  Sorry I can’t feel it though.”

Zer0 emotes an exclamation mark, running a hand up and down her arm, feeling for flaws.

“No, my arm’s fine.  It’s just… I didn’t have much time to upgrade it back on Eden 5.  First there was the science fair, then there was the whole going on the lamb thing.  It didn’t leave much time for tricking out my limb.  It only has basic pressure sensitivity on the pads so I can pick up stuff, fire guns etc.  At the time, it seemed much more important to get all the Deathtrap tech in there than be able to feel cuties holding my hand but right now I’m regretting that decision quite a bit and I’m rambling, aren’t I?”  She sighs, coughing a little on the exhale, “Time to add something new to the ‘makes me ramble” list: dying.”

“You’re not,” Zer0 says a little more emphatically than he wants to.  But he’s still lying and he knows it, had always known this was probable.  They lead dangerous lives and Gaige, while much better armed and more skilled than one might expect, is still just a teenage girl with a shield and a robot when it comes down to it.  It had always been likely that she would die and he, well, he doesn’t get attached.  Except right now, sitting next to this loud-mouthed, cocky, brilliant, beautiful girl as she bleeds to death, he doesn’t feel unattached.  He feels… raw.  He wishes she was somewhere else, somewhere safe.  That they had never met.  That he was capable of imparting some kind of actual human kindness to her in these, her last moments. “This is bullshit,” he grumbles before giving in and reaching out to caress her cheek with his free hand.

“I’m here, now what is the-”  Maya stops mid-sentence as she catches sight of Gaige and squats down on her other side.  Zer0 remembers too late to pull his hand back but figures Maya probably didn’t notice what with the bleeding girl between them.  She removes both Zer0’s and Gaige’s hands from Gaige’s stomach and looks at the wound.  After a beat, she says, “This doesn’t look so bad actually.  I’ve seen way worse.”

Zer0 feels himself let out a breath he doesn’t remember holding in.

Gaige chuckles which turns into a cough.  “So I’m going to live?”

“Yeah, you’re fine. This is going to sting a bit though,” she says as she puts a hand over the puncture.  Her tattoos begin to glow a blinding white and then Gaige screams, short and loud before passing out.  Maya pulls back her hand to reveal a stained and torn vest and shirt with perfectly even skin beneath it.  “See?  No problem.  Anyway,” Maya says glancing over at Zer0, “you can head out now.  She’s all fixed up and it is going to take a minute or two for her to come around.”  When Zer0 just stares at her, she continues, “I’ll cover for you, tell her you ran off and saved Axton so she doesn’t bug you about it later.  Don’t worry.”

“I’ll stay,” Zer0 says, glancing down at the Gaige’s unconscious form.

“You sure?  It’ll be-”

“Yes,” he says too quickly and much too firm.  He’s going to need to work on his vocal control if this keeps up.

Maya looks from him to Gaige, and then back at him.  Her eyebrows shoot up and then she quirks a smile.  “You make sure to take care of her then, alright?”

Zer0 can hear the emphasis, can see the look in Maya’s eyes and knows that she isn’t just talking about right now.  Maya is not the best at reading people, doesn’t seem to even know she’s harboring feelings for the psycho so if she knows, he must be really obvious.  He decides to beat himself up about it later.

He looks Maya straight in the eyes, for all the good that does and says, “I will.”

“Good, you better,” Maya says and nods before dashing back into the fray.

With Maya gone, what Zer0 has agreed to finally sinks in.  What the hell is wrong with him?  He glances down at the unconscious Gaige, a smile curling his lips before he realizes it and he sighs.  Resigned to his fate, Zer0 spends the next few minutes alternating between picking off guys from his current vantage point and irrationally checking if Gaige is still breathing. When he hears her stir, he forces himself to keep to his current task, skimming the battlefield and picking off targets.  If she’s moving, she’s okay, you don’t need to look, he reminds himself.

“Oh hey, it’s you agaaiii- wait, why are you still here?”

“You,” he says, eye still glued on his next target.  He fires and their head explodes into satisfying little bits.

“Maya would have stayed.  You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” he says, still looking through his sites even though he’s not searching for new targets anymore.

“This is not subtle or sneaky in the least, you realize that right?”

“Yes... sorry,” then after a beat he adds, “Maya knows... they all know.”

“I don’t care,” Gaige scoffs, “They’re your rules, not mine.  If you weren’t so worried about all your ‘pals’ killing me slowly to cause you angst, I’d tell everyone we met that you’re mine.  Hell, I’d record a new ECHOlog so the whole damn echonet could know.  I think at least part of it would have to be dedicated to dat ass though because... damn.”

Zer0 snaps his head around to look at her, embarrassment and confusion fighting for dominance. She’s propped up on her elbows and smiling at him.  He cocks his head to the side slightly, “Why?”

She crinkles up her eyes and frowns at him like he’s incredibly dense.  “Why wouldn’t I want people to know?  You’re the cockiest, sexiest, coolest dork I’ve ever met.  And this may come as a surprise to you but I’ve eh,” she pauses, glancing away for a moment, “never had a boyfriend before.  So I may be a bit on the extra excited side.”

Zer0 shakes his head.  He’s bad at people but even he could tell it was unlikely she’d ever had friends, let alone romantic partners, what with the way she took to her fellow vault hunters.  He still doesn’t really get it though. “I’m awful at this,” he huffs out.

“Yeah,” she grins, sitting up more and leaning in so her face is only a few inches from his helmet, “but it’s pretty fucking endearing, not gonna lie.”

Zer0 gulps.  Her proximity mixes with his lingering worry and he’s bringing his hand up and closing the last of the distance before he can think better of it.   At the last second, a Constructor nuke goes off near by and he remembers exactly where they are and what exactly they’d been doing just a few minutes earlier.  Fuck.  He reels back and springs to his feet, anger at himself for being so easily swept up covering over most of the longing easily.  He’s about to dash off and try to forget any of this happened when a pull in his gut makes him turn around and cast one last look at her.  She’s not looking at him but she’s grumbling under her breath and there’s a hint of a frown on her face.  He feels his stomach drop.   He sighs.

A moment later, he’s standing over her, offering her his right hand. “You ready?” he says, emoting a smile.

Gaige, eyes wide, looks up at his hand, then at his helmet and smiles.  She takes his offered hand with her human one and says, “To bust open that bunker and get that vault key?  You know it!”

And he might squeeze her hand a little more than is strictly necessary as he helps her up but based on her smile and how she squeezes back, he’s pretty sure she doesn’t mind.

 


	4. A Clever Deception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zer0 tries to distract Gaige after Control Core Angel.

Its been an hour since they arrived and scattered, each going their separate ways to try and deal with the ghost of another failed mission. Zer0's furious that he wasted a golden opportunity to kill Jack so he's spent that time at Marcus’s shooting range, headshotting the digistruct bandits over and over again while pretending that they’re him.  It doesn't seem to be making him feel much better but at least their heads still pop in a satisfying way so that's something.  He’s lining up another easy shot when out of nowhere he hears Gaige on his second com.

“-cking robot,” she grumbles followed by the sound of metal hitting metal in a semi rhythmic pattern.  “You really fucked up this time."

Zer0’s pretty sure Gaige must have turned her com on by mistake, hadn’t intended him to hear this but he's intrigued and bored so he stays on the line to listen, making sure he doesn't turn on his own mic.

"Maybe if you weren't such a trash heap," she says as she works aggressively on her robot, "Roland would still be alive." Clang. "Or that Angel chic, ya didn't save her either, did you?" Clang. "Didn't help Lilith." Clang. "Didn't even take a swing at Jack and he was right fucking there." Clang.  "Nope, you just shoot lasers and slash random stuff with your claws but when it comes down to it, you can't fucking help anyone, can you?" she growls, punctuating nearly every other word with a hit to her robot. "Can you?" she shouts, the hits to her robot tapering off as she starts to cry.  

Zer0 listens, torn between being uncomfortable with such an emotional display and a longing to make her pain go away.  He hadn't thought about it until just this moment but it makes perfect sense that Gaige would react so volatility.  Someone as young and emotional as her might blame themselves for things outside their control, might mourn people needlessly.  In spite of his vague comprehension of her actions though, he has no idea how to comfort her, could not imagine what he could do or say that would help.  He could just hang up, let her have this time to herself but the thought of her crying alone on the other side of town twists something in his chest.  Also he's pretty sure that if he doesn't do something, her robot will be in an awful state of disrepair by the time Mordecai calls them for the next mission and that won't be good for anyone.  

He's trying to decide what he should do when he hears her say, "What are we even doing here, boy?" the words low and hollow.

He turns on his mic, and before he even knows what he's doing, he's calling out her name, all worries about having no plan temporarily forgotten.

"Oh hey Zer0," she sniffs, trying to fake cheerful and failing, "now's not a great time so if this can wait-"

"I'm afraid it can't," Zer0 lies, "I am in need of your help/ meet me at our spot."

"Are you alright?" Gaige says, worry obviously in her tone.

"I'm fine," he says then pauses, reaching for a reason he'd need her help urgently, "I just… need your help," he finishes lamely.

Zer0 hears lots of thuds in quick succession then Gaige says, "Okay, tools required, got it see you soon," before hanging up on him.

Zer0 blinks, realizes that Gaige had assumed a reason he hadn't meant to imply and smiles. Repairs to his mod is just the sort of distraction he needs to keep her from wallowing too much.  He's just about to head over to their meeting spot when he realizes that Gaige will notice immediately if he doesn't actually need any repairs.  In a second, he's going over his mental schematic of his arms, quickly determining a point that wouldn't require any additional parts to repair.  Then, after turning off the pain sensors in that arm, he shoots himself with a revolver right above his left elbow and heads off to meet her.

***

He meets Gaige by the same door as last time, his heart dropping a little as he notices the red around her eyes.  He pretends he doesn't though, just picks open the lock again and heads inside. Gaige follows after him, toolbox in tow, expression neutral.  He locks the door behind them, and starts undressing, still nervous about being this exposed in front of her but wanting to get right down to the business of distracting her.  She doesn't look away this time, her cheeks pinking slightly as her eyes scan his chest and maybe this plan will work better than expected because the corners of her lips are already turning up in the faintest of smiles.

Zer0 ducks his head and, after a bit of a struggle, gets the last arm of his suit off, surprised by how poorly he's handling the loss of motor function.  He folds his chestpiece slightly before setting it aside and going to sit on the bed again, just like last time.

Gaige follows after him, pausing right before she sits down to ask, "It's the left arm, right?  Somewhere near the joint?"

He nods and she sits downs, her eyes and fingers exploring his damaged limb.  Only a few seconds later, she says, "I'm pretty sure you've been shot." She looks from the bullet hole to his helmet and back.  "How the hell did you not notice you'd been shot until right now?"

Zer0 looks at her, searching for a palatable lie and failing. "I... was busy."

Gaige frowns. "So the horrible pain didn't tip you off at all?

"I've been through much worse/ and my mods can turn off pain/ if it's in the way."

He thought Gaige would find that feature interesting but she's just glaring at him like he's made a horrible mistake. "Well in that case, mister tough guy, maybe you should let me check you over after a hurried firefight so you don't accidentally, I don't know, leak enough essential fluids that you die or something."

Zer0 just stares at her, not sure why she's mad at him now but pretty sure that she is.  "That would be impractical," he says.

Her shoulders fall.  "I know, I know," she says, shaking her head as she stares at the bullet hole, "I'll shut up now, sorry."

Zer0 stares at the top of her head as she starts to focus on her work, pretty sure that his plan isn't working right.  Yes, he got her away from Deathtrap and gave her something else to distract her but it doesn't seem to be enough.  Maybe, instead of just a distraction, she needs something to actively make her happy.  He's trying to think of ways he could do that but he's having trouble focusing.  It takes him a moment to realize that it's silent aside from the sound of Gaige's tools and he's never minded silence before but here, in the presence of Gaige, the stillness he's so accustomed to on his own to feels abnormal, oppressive.  

He's frowning down at her, worried and not sure what to do when he remembers her earlier little smile when he took off his chestpiece, the pleased expression on her face after their "kiss" at the power station.  Perhaps if he makes an aggressive romantic gesture of his own, such as "kissing" her like before or maybe even kissing her for real this time, she'll be both distracted and happy.  He considers the second option, remembering what her lips had felt like through his gloves and the way his own lips had yearned to touch hers and decides to go for it.  He's just going to take off his helmet and kiss her, no big deal.

Except it is a big deal and he knows it, can't quite bring himself to take off what has been both his protection and his filter for the world for so long, especially in front of another person.  No one's seen his face and lived since before he became Zer0 and he'd hadn't thought that was ever going to change.  But now he wants it to, wants the physical closeness taking off the helmet can provide but he's nervous.  It doesn't help that he's not attractive under the visor, knows his face is sharp and scared and filled with tech. It had never mattered to him before but Gaige is a very pretty girl and he's worried that once she sees how strange looking he is, she won't like him anymore. So instead of just pulling off his helmet, tipping up her face and kissing her like he should, he just sits there and lets her work on his arm, stalled out by fear for the first time in his life.

The silence grows and Zer0's not any closer to convincing himself to just kiss her when Gaige says, "When did you get shot anyway?  Seems like this big a problem would have fucked with your aim really bad."

Zer0 smiles at the sound of her voice but he's not sure he likes the way these questions are going. "Control Core Angel," he says, "Near the end."  

"That's what I thought," she nods, "It's just that I'm pretty sure this," she holds up a handful of shrapnel, "isn't the sort of bullet Hyperion bots use, ya know?"

Zer0 freezes up, not sure what to do or say, only sure that if he doesn't do something soon, Gaige is going to figure out what's going on here.  In his panic, he pulls off the helmet with a hiss, sure that whatever her reaction to his face is will be enough to distract her from her current line of questioning.  The stale air of the abandon room hits his lungs unfiltered for the first time.  His one remaining human eye blinks in the suddenly brighter light but through his cybernetic eye he watches as Gaige's eyes grow wide, her mouth hanging open.

"Holy shit," she says, "you're… really hot. Like damn."

Zer0 lets out the breath he was holding in and frowns, highly conscious of the fact that Gaige can see his expression for once.  He turns his face slightly away, grumbling, "I'm not," under his breath. He crinkles up his nose at the sound of his own voice, still deep but slightly less mechanical than he's used to and definitely less cool sounding.

"And that's not all synth," Gaige leans so she can still see most of his face, "so you do really sound like that… Niiice." She bites her bottom lip and smiles as she says the last word.

Zer0 turns back to glare at her, his cheeks burning but she just smiles bigger. "Oh god, like technically that is a scary face you're making but right now basically everything you're doing is super endearing to me, sooo... sorry?" She shrugs.

"Stop it," he looks down, trying to avoid meeting Gaige's gaze.  

"Sorry sorry, I get it," she says, ducking down her face so she can see him again, "somewhere along the line someone told you you were ugly because you don't fit some stereotypical model of beauty or whatever.  But the thing is," she reaches out and after gently putting her hand on his jaw, tips his face back up, "I like roman noses, and high cheekbones, and cybernetic eyes and... I like you.  And I'd probably still like you even if you were less hot than you are but you aren't so lucky me, I guess?"  She smiles at him and then, seemingly remembering that she's touching his face, pulls her hand back, chuckling nervously.  "That was like way forward of me, sorry.  I just… wow."

"You're biased," he says, still annoyed and wishing that Gaige hadn't moved her hand away.

"Maybe," she says, her eyes roaming his face like she trying to memorize it. "But seriously, why they hell did you shoot yourself in the arm?  You know you can die from stuff like that, right?"

Zer0 groans, displeased that after all that, his plan had failed to distract her. "I aimed carefully/ seeing you was required/ I knew you'd fix it."

Gaige leans her face a little closer. "You didn't think to just ask me?  Like a normal person?"

"You said it wasn't a good time," he says, his eyes flitting around to look anywhere but hers.

Gaige sighs, "Yeah, but I didn't know you were calling about you and me stuff.  If you'd just told me," she pauses for a moment, counting out syllables on her hand, then lowers her voice in a bad imitation of his, "Gaige you're really cute, I need to touch your butt now, it's cuddling time," she switched back to her normal voice, "I would have come right over."

"I don't sound like that," Zer0 says, his face drifting closer to hers on it's own accord.

"Artistic license," she shrugs, before leaning in so close she almost goes out of focus.  Her eyes dart to his lips and then she licks her own.  "So," she says, a mild blush spreading across her face, "any chance I can kiss you, like on the mouth this time?"  

"That was the poi-" he starts to say but Gaige seems to understand his meaning perfectly without him finishing because she leans across the last of the gap and puts her lips on his.  It's a decently chaste kiss, mouths closed and unmoving but Zer0 can't remember the last time his lips touched anything but his helmet, let alone someone he was attracted to. He feels his stomach flip and tilts his head slightly, moving his lips across hers to heighten the sensation.  She lets out a little groan and does the same thing back to him and before he knows it, he's pulled her into his lap, one hand in her hair, the other wrapped around her waist.  She gasps and kisses him back harder, her mouth opening a little more with each pass until she's running her tongue along his top lip.  He mirrors the gesture back and soon, they're making out with wild abandon, all of his fears and normal attentiveness to his surroundings lost to the simple act of kissing Gaige.  He's pretty sure that objectively neither of them are good kissers but at the moment, with Gaige's lips on his and her body warm and close, he knows he doesn't care.

***

Zer0 doesn't know how long they've been making out but he's panting and gasping and happy, a strange kind of happy that both freaks him out and makes him feel like his insides are made of warmth.  He's also had an erection pushing uncomfortably against his cup for awhile now but he doesn't mind really as long as he gets to keep kissing Gaige.  The possible need to deal with inevitable bodily reactions is something he'll worry about later.  

They're still just kissing, Gaige's breasts pressed into his bare chest, her human hand running through the peach fuzz on his head when they hear Mordecai's voice, saying, "Gonna need all you Vault Hunters back at HQ in a hurry. Can't leave Lil hanging, can we?" come blasting out of Gaige's ECHO device and Zer0's helmet.

Zer0 jerks back, startled out of his revelry while Gaige ignores it, leaning back in to kiss him, gentle and sweet like nothing has just happened.

"We need to answer,"  he says between kisses.

Gaige groans but otherwise ignores him.

"And I'd need my helmet on/ or I would sound wrong."

"Fine, I get it," she sighs.  She pulls back slightly, and turning on her ECHO device, says, "Just…. uhhhh finishing up some last minute repairs on DT, see you in ten," before turning it off again and throwing it to the side. "Now where were we?" she says leaning back in and kissing him, the contact sending his head reeling again.

He lets her kiss him for a moment before he remembers something important and mumbles out between insistent kisses, "Gaige, my arm, you never-"

"Fuck," Gaige says, finally pulling away slightly, "you're right.  And it definitely wasn't even passable functionality wise when we started this so..."  She rubs her chin for a moment and then her eyebrows shoot up as she sticks up her index finger, saying, "I got this."

Zer0 tilts his head and Gaige pecks him once more on the lips before she climbs off his lap and gets to work.  A few frantic minutes later, filled with mumbling and the constant clang of tools, Gaige says, "Alright, that should just about do it. Do a quick test for me."

Zer0 flexes his arm, then his fingers, surprised by how responsive they are. He turns back on the pain sensors, and the arm aches dully as if coated in bruises but nothing more; a reminder that it's still not at one hundred percent.  He reaches out and runs his hand along her cheek, feeling both the warmth and softness just like normal.

She pushes her face into his hand, staring at his face with soft eyes.  "Yup, seems to be working fine." She pauses, glancing down and biting her bottom lip. "The one thing you gotta know is that this is a really Macgyver fix so like first possible opportunity I need to actually fix it right or else… your whole arm might lock up?"

Zer0 nods, tilting her face back and kissing her gently. "Okay."

"You're not mad?" she says, shaking her head like she doesn't quite believe it.

"I did this, not you/ Your repairs are amazing/ For so little time."

"Oh thanks," she says blushing slightly, "I'd say it's nothing but it's really not."

Zer0 chuckles and Gaige smiles back, eyes scanning his face like she thinks she'll never see it again.  "So," she says, "any chance we can do this again?  With less getting shot first but yeah? Or was this like a one time thing?"

Zer0 leans in and kisses her, reveling the feeling of her lips on his for a moment before he says, "What do you think?"

"Uhhh," Gaige says, "Definitely going to happen again?"

"Correct," he smiles, leaning in to kiss her one last time before pulling away to put his helmet back on.

"No wait," she says, turning his face back around and kissing him hard, all insistent touches and tongue. "That is our last kiss before you put back on your whole face sunglasses deal, thank you very much."

He laughs and puts back on his helmet, watching Gaige stare at his face until its gone.  With the helmet closed, the inside HUD springs to life, illuminating a still staring Gaige.

"We need to get going," he tilts his head at her.

"Yeah yeah," she says, pecking him on the helmet chastely while squeezing his shoulder.  "I'm not the one who still needs to put their clothes back on."  

Zer0 chuckles and goes to put back on his armor, glad that when it came down to it, he finally did something right for once.


	5. Crumbling Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Vault Hunters defeat Jack and throw a party while little by little, Zer0's letting some of his defenses down.

Zer0 leaves Gaige a few minutes later, his mind a haze of lingering lust and worry that they'll be found out this time.  When he arrives at Crimson Raider's headquarters, he finds everyone but Gaige already there, gathered around the war room table and listening to Mordecai explain his plan.  No one turns around to look at him as he enters but he  is very quiet so it's possible they didn't notice his entrance.  He just settles in against the back wall and is listening intently to Mordecai's plan when Gaige storms in at full speed, her high tops thwacking the stairs as she runs.

"Sorry I'm late," she pants, bending over as she tries to catch her breath, "DT had taken more damage than I'd realized."

Mordecai glances over at Gaige and finally noticing Zer0's arrival as well, says, "If you two are done making out and holding up the rest of group, I'd like to hurry up and get Lil back, alright?"

Zer0 freezes and Gaige squeaks, her face becoming even more red than it already was from running over here.

There's an awkward silence for a moment then Sal says, "I don't think they wanted you to notice, amigo."

"Oh geez really?" Mordecai says, glancing between Zer0 and Gaige and shaking his head, "You two?  I was just joking."

Gaige laughs, awkward and loud, stuttering out, "T-that's funny, Sal but we all know Zer0 would never, like not in a million years ever waste his time on feelings and junk, not when there's still sweet ass things around to kill, right?  That's just crazy talk."

Axton just shakes his head while the rest of the group turns their attention back to Mordecai, acting as if Gaige hadn't said anything.  

Zer0 sighs, displeased that almost everyone he works with seems to know their secret but to his own surprised, less worried than last time.  Maybe it's just that he's growing to trust these people, knows that they'd never intentionally hurt Gaige or maybe he's just getting soft.

"Anyway, " Mordecai says, snapping Zer0 out of his head, "Now that you're all here, I need you guys to head out.  Me and Brick have to make sure nothing bad happens to Sanct but with six vault hunters storming the blockade, I'm sure you guys will get that info before we know it."

The rest of the group is nodding in agreement and saying various affirmative phrases as they turn to go when Krieg shouts, "SQUEEZE 'EM DRY," over the cacophony.

"Yeah, what he said," Brick shouts back, "Give em hell out there, slabs."

"What are we doing again?" Gaige says, casting a worried expression at each of the vault hunters in turn as the filter past her.

"Don't worry," Maya says, as she reaches the girl and leads her out of the room, "I'll tell you everything you missed."

Zer0 is just turning to go, bringing up the rear of the group when Mordecai says, "Hey, uh Zer0?  Sorry about that.  Didn't mean to out you guys or anything."

Zer0 nods, and starts to turn to go again when Mordecai adds, "Gaige deserves better though.  Don't string her along or you'll regret it.  Believe me."

Zer0 rolls his eyes, annoyed that Mordecai is lecturing him when he obviously doesn't understand the situation.  He doesn't want to waste the time to explain it to him though so he just nods and leaves, booking it towards the fast travel station to catch up with the others.  

He finds them waiting for him, Maya still explaining random details of the mission to Gaige while Sal and Krieg play Jun Ken Po. Gaige turns around just in time to see him coming and breaks into a stupid big smile before trying to reign it in.  He smiles back reflexively before deciding to hell with it and emoting it back.  It isn't like they don't all know or anything.  He lets out a breath as he walks up behind Gaige and sets a hand on the top of her head, saying, "Let's go," as if this was a totally normal thing to do.  Maybe it even is.  

"Just waiting on you, slow poke," Axton grins and starts to input the code into the FTS.

The last thing Zer0 sees before they go is Gaige turning to look at him, her face both confused and pleased at the same time, her cheeks slightly pink.

****

 It's nearly a day later when the Warrior falls and Lilith sears Jack's brains out of his head.  Zer0 kinda wishes he'd gotten to deliver the final blow but at least Lilith's way looks sufficiently painful.  He glances down at the Jack's dead body, considering throwing it into the lava for kicks when he notices Jack's mask.  He picks it up and turns it over, wondering what tech is embedded in it that made it so expressive.

"You're not going to... wear that, are you?" Gaige says, disgust obvious in her tone.

Zer0 holds the mask in front of his visor, noting the way it limits his field of view and the look of horror on Gaige's face before pulling it away and emoting a ":P".  "No," he says, "It's just a trophy."

"Do you collect a lot those?" Gaige asks, her eyes back on the guns scattered on the ground.

"No," Zer0 says, turning the mask over in his hands as he considers it. When it came down to it, Jack was not a particularly challenging enemy himself but getting to him and working with these people had been quite the experience.  He decides to keep it for now, stowing the mask in his digistruct storage unit and hoping that the blood won't get removed by some sort of storing error.

"Can I see the ones you do have someday?" Gaige says, her eyes darting up from the two guns she's comparing and back to him.

"Maybe," he says, walking over to look through the guns Gaige had passed up.

"That sounds like a yes to me," she says, expression smug. "You're going to take me to your super secret ninja base someday and you know it."

Zer0 shakes his head and chuckles but doesn't argue. As much as he wishes it wasn't true, wishes he still had more common sense than that, she's probably right.  He pushes the worry down that he's in too deep and focuses on the guns, looking for a good Jacobs or maybe a Dahl.  

"Hey actually," Gaige says, pulling a Jacobs assault rifle out of her storage unit, "I grabbed this but you might actually get more use out of it."  She holds the gun out and Zer0 sees to his surprise that its a Hammer Buster.

"Thank you," he says, taking the gun out of her hand and checking it over, amazed that she'd found something this nice in all the trash.

"Eh NBD," she says, her eyes flicking away from him whenever he makes it obvious that he's looking at her.  "A nice rare like that deserves a home where it will get to headshot as many scrubs as possible."

Zer0 chuckles under his breath and nods before stowing the gun.  He and Gaige fall into a companionable near silence and go back to looking through the spoils, Zer0 now more on the look out for something nice for Gaige than something for himself.

A few minutes later, once each of the vault hunter has had a chance to pick over the loot and Lilith has reclaimed the vault key, the group heads back to Sanctuary, worn out but triumphant.  Zer0 assumes that most of them will want to crash as soon as they reach the city but lingering adrenaline and the joy of victory leads instead to an impromptu party.  There's loud music and tons of alcohol and if Zer0 was more in his right mind, he'd bail instead of wasting his time on these sorts of social interactions. Zer0 can't remember the last time he'd been to a party as an attendee and not just lurking in the rafters to kill someone there. But these are his friends, as strange a concept as that is and he likes spending time with them (even if he is more comfortable with their interactions during battle) so he stays.  

****

The party has only been going for about half an hour and Zer0 isn't sure what he's supposed to do.  Parties, like relationships, are one of the few places he finds himself out of his depth so he's just been lurking around, carrying the one beer Salvador gave him at the start and interacting with anyone who talks to him directly. Gaige in particular keeps trying to catch his eye and he's kinda avoiding her, torn between his desire to be around her and not wanting to put the final nail in the secrecy coffin just yet.  It's stupid and he knows it but as much as he feels lost at this party, he's sure he'll feel even more lost attempting to play the part of Gaige's "boyfriend" in front of everyone.

Avoiding her hasn't kept him from paying most of his attention to her though.  He's pretty sure that Gaige has only had one drink so far and already she's quite tipsy.  The addition of alcohol to her personality seems to mostly applify her, making her louder and chattier and even more impulsive than normal.  For the last few minutes, she's been talking to Axton, arguing without much ire about the evils of corporations versus the order that they can provide.  Zer0's pretty sure that no ones going to budge in that discussion but at least they're in too good a mood to do anything more than bicker back and forth.  

Gaige glances away from Axton, her eyes meeting Zer0's and he freezes.  "Hey, just a sec," she says to Axton, her eyes never leaving Zer0.  Then she walks right over to him, puts her hands on her hips and looks up at him with mild annoyance.  "Any chance you're going to stop avoiding me now?"

"Sorry," Zer0 says, not quite meeting her eyes.

"I just don't get it?" she shakes her head exaggeratedly.  "You were being all… sweet and... not sneaky earlier and now you're acting like you're allergic to me, what gives?"

Zer0's shoulders fall and he says down to his feet, "I... don't know how to do this."

Gaige leans in closer to hear him over the music and he makes sure not to pull away.  "What do you mean?  Like parties or us at parties or what?" she says, her expression still mostly annoyed.

He grimaces, then looks up at her and says, "Both."

She sighs. "I'm no expert on this stuff since I have literally no experience but I'm pretty sure the goal of parties is to have fun… with people you like.  Like me for example." She wiggles her eyebrows.  "You should definitely be hanging out with me instead of watching me like a creepy stalker from the other side of the room.  I'm pretty sure everybody knows about us already so there's no point in pretending around them anymore."

"Lilith doesn't-" Zer0 starts to whisper but at just that moment she shouts, "Woooo Gaige! Go for it girl!  You grab that ass!" from across the room and Zer0 gives up.  He should have known really.

"I did not tell her, I swear," Gaige says as she waves her arms and shakes her head, her cheeks pink. "All she knows is that I like your ass because damn, who the hell wouldn't want to-"

"I know," he says, cutting her off before she goes into more detail.  "She must have figured it out."

"Well," she says, bopping back and forth to the beat, "It's not like these people don't see us together all the time  There's no way we could have really kept it secret forever, ya know?"

Zer0 knows that's probably true but he wishes it wasn't, wishes that his feelings weren't so transparent, that he'd been able to keep being an enigma to everyone but Gaige forever.  Instead of commenting on it though, he just says, "What now?"

"Pretty sure we can't do anything about everyone knowing," Gaige starts to say until Zer0 shakes his head. "Oh you mean at this party?" he nods so she continues, "Actually I was totally in the middle of a really interesting discussion with Axton, maybe you'll have something to add or something."  She walks back across the room to where Axton is still nursing his drink, glancing over her shoulder as she goes and Zer0 follows, feeling self conscious but not wanting to make Gaige upset again.

"Oh hey," Axton says, "You caught yourself a Zer0."

"Yeah," Gaige says, glancing up at Zer0 before purposely bumping her shoulder into his side.  "He's elusive but I managed it somehow."

Zer0 jostles slightly, a bit of a smile pulling at his lips.

"But yeah," she says, "I'm back to convince you that the man is, in fact, the ultimate evil."   

Axton laughs, "Good luck kid."

Zer0 listens as the two of them sink back into a rhythm, their arguments reaching a good clip as they each basically ignore what the other is saying.  At one point in the discussion, Gaige asks Zer0 for his opinion, probably hoping that he'll agree with her.  He tells them simply that they are both wrong because they both think that society is capable of goodness when that is provably false.  They both get really quiet for a moment but then Salvador joins them, shouting enthusiastically and handing Gaige a beer, basically saving them from a really awkward moment.  Zer0 wants to tell him that he doesn't think that it's a good idea but Gaige looks so pleased to have another drink he doesn't have it in him to intervene.  

Salvador wanders off to give beer to more people nearly as abruptly as he arrived and Axton switches the subject to upgrading his turret.  Gaige is even more excited about that topic, waving her free arm enthusiastically in between swigs of her drink, her voice getting louder as she gets progressively more drunk.  She's just mentioning some of the improved AI elements she could add, Axton nodding along as she talks and Zer0 is starting to feel like this is all a waste of time.  Sure, robotics is generally an interesting field and Gaige and Axton are people he likes but they don't need him here to have this conversation, what is he even doing here really? He's considering losing the drink he has and acting like he needs another one just to get away when Gaige finally finishes hers and after dropping it to the ground, wraps her now free arm around his waist.  Then she smiles up at him and says, "You wouldn't… happen to know anything about robotics, would you Zer0?"

And he knows its a joke, knows that she's not tipping them off because only a highly skilled engineer would ever notice his mods and he knows that it's a joke meant for just for the two of them but he still shakes his head at her because it's a dumb joke. "I don't," he lies, even as ever.

"Yeah," Gaige snickers, "a bit outside your skillset."

Axton's looking between the two of them and raises an eyebrow. "Something funny I don't get?"

Gaige keeps laughing and shakes her head. "Just that this guy thinks he's soooo much cooler than me when I," she slaps her free hand to her chest, "can basically build a whole person from sckratch. Can't step to that, can you?"  

Zer0 shrugs, "My accuracy/ and speed at which I can kill/ are beyond human."

"Pshhhh," Gaige says, pulling Zer0 flush against her side, "Show me something you're good at that isn't killing people and then we'll talk, hot ass."

Zer0 feels the warmth of her body sink into his skin, his cheeks pinkening at the nickname.  He ignores them both and retorts, "I'm good at math."

Gaige and Axton both laugh at that and Zer0 emotes back a ":)".  Maybe this party is going better than he thought.

***

The evening goes on and Zer0's actually having a pretty good time.  He and Gaige mostly stick together, wandering around and hanging out with varied assortments of their friends as everyone but Zer0 talks about random things.  And he's smiling and laughing and periodically saying something clever so despite his fears that Gaige would make him feel more out of sorts in this environment, it's turning out to be just the opposite.

Gaige is part of the way through drink number three and by now she's trashed, all slurred words and roaming hands, no longer caring at all who's around.  She's only put her hands below his waist once and when he'd told her not to do that in public, she'd listened but she still can't seem to keep her hands off him.  She keeps leaning in to his space, loudly whispering about how they should go someplace private and Zer0's all nerves and slightly aroused,  torn between a desire to do exactly that and not wanting to take advantage of Gaige when she's drunk.  

She's currently leaning against his chest, her face turned up so she can look at him, her free hand on his back when Sal comes over, smiling and fresh off an arm wrestling victory.

"Friends," he says, smacking Gaige on the back hard enough that Zer0 feels the blow through her.  "You two look like you're having fun."

Gaige lolls her head in Salvador's general direction and starts to nod before regretting it.  "Don't let him fool you," she says after a moment, "he may be a plank but he's a very comfortable plank."

"How many has she had?" Sal glances up at Zer0, obviously hoping that he'll know the answer.

"Three," Zer0 says while Gaige says, "Only two, don't worry bout it," talking right over him like he isn't speaking.

"Okay," Sal says, glancing over his shoulder before he adds, "Maya made me promise to keep you from getting too drunk-"  Gaige 'boos' but Sal keeps talking, "But I think you should be allowed to let go a bit. Celebrate, ya know?" Gaige cheers, almost cutting Sal off again but he ignores her and finishes with, "As long as you promise you're going to drink one cup of water for every other drink, okay?"

"Fine," she sighs, rolling her eyes at Salvador like he's ridiculous.

"Believe me, cosita," he says, seemingly wandering over to the bar to grab her a cup of water, "you'll be thanking me tomorrow."

Zer0 watches him go then looks down at Gaige, shaking his head at her.

She pulls her head back up to look at him and frowns. "You think I'm too drunk, right?"

"I think you'll want to die tomorrow."

Gaige blows a raspberry at him.

"I'm just being honest," he shrugs.

She crinkles up her nose and then sighs exasperatedly.  "Alright, alright, I'll slow down, promise.  It's just that… I've never been to a party before, ya know?  Other kids got to go to all kinds of jamming shindigs but not me. No one invites the weird kid to the good parties."

Zer0 sets a hand on the top of her head and sighs.  It's been so long since he was a social creature himself but he thinks he gets it.  Gaige just wants to feel normal, feel like she belongs (even if it is with the most abnormal group of people a teenage girl has ever befriended) so who is he to begrudge her that?

"Make sure to drink your water," Zer0 says as Sal returns carrying a red plastic cup in one hand, another beer for himself in the other.

"Kay," Gaige says, finally prying herself off his chest and taking the water cup in her free hand.  He watches her as she takes her first sip, the warmth of her body already starting to slip away and smiles.

***

A few hours later, as the party is starting to wind down, Zer0's arm finally starts to lock up.  He's just minding his own business, helping Gaige stay upright as she talks and wobbles when suddenly there's searing pain and his arm stops working.  Gaige almost falls over but at the last moment, his arm starts responding again and he catches her.

"That wasn't nice,"  Gaige says, frowning up at him like he just stole her kill.  "I coulda been hurt."

"It wasn't on purpose," Zer0 hisses, hoping Gaige will understand what he means from just that.

"But you're all… ninja-y so that doesn't make sense."

Zer0 sighs.  The worst part about drunk people is how stupid they can be.  "Remember before," he whispers, "how I had a problem and/ you did a quick fix?"

"Oh yeah," Gaige says very loudly, "I needed to actually fix that, didn't I?"

"Quieter please," Zer0 says, pushing Gaige up against the nearest wall and closing all of the distance between them.

"Oh wow," she gawks up at him, "that was really hot."

"Gaige, please focus."

"Okay, alright I can do this." She blinks her eyes and smacks herself on the face gently.  "You need me… to be quieter?"

Zer0 grits his teeth and tries again. "You did a temp patch/ which was far beyond my skills/ how do we fix it?"

"Ohhhhh," she shouts then realizing her own volume, repeats quieter, "I mean ohhhh, if it's already doing... bad stuff, we're going to need some new parts and… I probably shouldn't work on it like this."

"Fuck," Zer0 mumbles under his breath, torn between being worried about having a undependable arm and wondering how the hell he's going to fix it quickly with his engineer out of commission and all his spare parts back on his ship in low orbit.  "What parts need to be replaced?" he asks, wondering if he can get enough information out of her so that he can do the start of the repairs on his own.

"Ohh I don't know," Gaige says, shaking her head and looking down. "It depends whether the... actuator was the first to go or the cyber… nerves.  I'd have to look, sorry."

Zer0 sighs, a sinking feeling forming in his guts as he realizes what he needs to do. No one but him has ever stepped foot on his ship.  It's one of his most guarded secrets and the only place in the entire universe where he feels completely safe.  And now, against his better judgement, he needs to bring Gaige there.  He lets out a breath to steel himself, saying, "Let's go," as he puts an arm around her shoulders and starts to guide Gaige out of the building and to the Fast Travel Station.

"Hey hey," Gaige says, smacking her hand against Zer0's stomach as they go, "you finally taking me someplace private?"

Zer0 sighs and shakes his head. "Yes."

****  

“Where are we?” Gaige says, her eyes wide as she tries to take in all her new surroundings.

For a moment, he considers lying but she's drunk and he's trusted her so far so he just says, “My ship,” cringing a little as the words leave his mouth.

“Alright then, I’m just gonna,” she says, starting to pull her shirt off, “take all this off then, okay?”

His eyes bulge. “No,” he says, pulling her hands off her shirt and the shirt back down in one fluid motion.

“But you said no earlier in the plaza because there were- people and now there aren’t people so I’ll just-” she starts to reach for the bottom of her shirt again and again Zer0 moves her hands away.

“I’m here,” he says, emphasizing each word in hopes that it will stick in her brain better.

“But you don’t count," she shakes her head before realizing what she's said and adds, "No wait that came out wrong.  I mean you aren’t people because… I want you to see.  All of this,” she runs her hands from her boobs and down her hips, “is already yours if you want it.”

Zer0 feels his stomach flip at the thought.  Ever since they'd kissed, the idea of doing it again, of maybe doing more had becoming a recurring thought, just a little notion buzzing around in the back of his mind whenever Gaige caught his eye. Luckily for him, they'd been busy, much too busy for there to be any time to daydream about such things. But now with an evening worth of memories of her throwing herself at him and no missions lined up, not thinking about that urge didn’t seem like an option his brain could choose anymore.  He looks down at Gaige and he wants to kiss her, to feel her warm, soft body against his.  He shakes his head and says, “You are much too drunk/ there is a bed in that room," he gestures to his bedroom door just down the hall, "keep your clothes on please.”

“So you’re... not interested... in me... like that?” Gaige says, voice quiet, her shoulders curling in more and more with each syllable.

Zer0 sighs, “You're beautiful but/ actions have times and places/ now is not the time."

"So what you're saying is," she knits her brow in concentration, "now's not a good time?"

Zer0 nods, saying slowly, “You are too drunk for sex. Period.”

“Ohhhh alright but you still want to... yeah? someday?" she looks up at him, eyes big and hopeful.

He looks down at her and even though it scares the crap out of him, he knows his answer without really thinking about it.  "Yes," he says and turns to go, wanting nothing more than to stop thinking about all of this.

"Wait, where are you going?" she calls after him, concern obvious in her tone.

“To sleep,” Zer0 lies, intending to go to his practice room and train until he passes out.

“But you said the bed's in here, you mean you're not going to-”

"No," Zer0 says, not even turning around.

"Wait come back," Gaige says, quiet and sad.  "I promise I’ll be a... perfect gentlemen.  I won’t do anything hinky.   It’s just, it would be nice to… have you there."

The tone of Gaige's voice stops him dead in his tracks.  The last thing he wants right now is all the complications sleeping in the same bed is liable to cause but at the same time, he can't just leave her alone and drunk someplace she doesn't know, especially when it makes her sound like that.  Zer0 turns around and against his better judgement, nods.  

"Awesome," Gaige smiles before taking two steps down the hallway and plowing into the wall.

Zer0 comes back and guides her to his small room before sitting her down on his small bed and trying to help her remove some of her extra stuff.  She tries two more times to strip down before Zer0 eventually succeeds at helping her get off all her bulky stuff and basically tucking her into bed.

She yawns, looking up at him from where she's lying fully clothed on his bed and says, "Thanks."

He nods and she stares at him for a few moments before she adds, "What are you doing up there still?"

Zer0 grimaces but complies, trying to gingerly lay down on the far edge of his way too small for two people bed without touching Gaige and mostly failing.  Gaige seems to ignore his hesitance, quickly shifting both of them so that her head is resting over his heart and one of her hands is on his other pec.

"Night," she mumbles, rubbing her face against the arm plating like it's cozy or something.

He stares down at her, expecting to feel nervous or maybe aroused and while there is a bit of that, most of what he feels is happy and a pleasant sort of warm.  He's also, to his own surprise, far more tired than he realized.  So he lays there, eyes closed, still but not uncomfortable, and listens as Gaige's breathing slows down before finally drifting off himself. 

 


	6. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zer0 brings Gaige back to his ship, intending for her to fix his arm but things don't go exactly as planned.

Zer0 wakes with a start, fully alert to the grip of small arms wrapped around his torso.   _Just Gaige_ , he realizes after a moment and forces his urge to lash out, to kill or flee down.   _I brought her back to my ship after the party last night because I needed her help.  She was very drunk._  He quickly glances under the blanket at the lean form pressed along his side and swears under his breath.  Small breasts nearly fall out of their lacey confines while soft thighs cradle his own metal one.   _When did she do that?_ he thinks, his body already responding to her proximity.  He knows it is generally considered rude to leave one's bed partners alone in the morning but the last thing he wants to do right now is get more turned on so he extracts himself from her arms and slips out of the room.  

Now free of the mostly naked Gaige, he sighs and heads to his training room, knowing that there's no better way to clear his head than to run his body through its paces.  He reaches the room and automatically strips down, leaving his armor, helmet and boots in a neat pile before changing into a pair of hakama. He pulls a wooden sword off its rack, and heads to the center of the room, the feel of tatami beneath his feet comforting.  His hands flex around the handle, the buzz of lust already settling to a dull ache as he focuses on the task at hand.  He raises the blade above his head in a smooth, precise motion before bringing it down straight in front of him, fast and hard.  He repeats the motion, his bare feet padding across the floor as he runs the familiar exercise. _This_ , he thinks, _is my natural state; a creature of pure power and grace, a weapon.  I'm not meant to deal with stuff like relationships._  His mind drifts for a moment to Gaige’s hands on his face, pulling him in for a kiss but he shakes it off, returning his focus to the strain of his muscles as he runs his drills.

Warm up complete, he begins in earnest to push himself, his steps now becoming a dance with an invisible partner.  He glides across the floor, quick, smooth dashes ending in strikes.  His heart rate speeds up, blood singing through his veins.  Flashes of Gaige’s lips on his, her breasts grazing his chest interspace themselves between his blade’s thrusts, slowing them down a fraction of a second. _No_ , he thinks, _Control yourself.  You are a sharp blade in the dark.  Killing is what you’re good at.  Focus._

He forces his body on, trying to add some acrobatics as he works his way around the room.  He lands the first flip off balance but recovers enough to not lose momentum. “Sloppy” he growls, voice rough and low.  _Keep this up and you’re dead._   The next flip is tighter but he still can’t seem to shake the lingering memory of how her curves had fit against his lines.  His mind wanders as his footwork gets sloppy, vivid images and sensations cut between the hum of his muscles working: Hands sliding over warm skin, lips and tongue playing with bare nipples. He pushes himself harder, faster, hoping that it might bring his body and mind back under his control.  But the flashes just build and grow until, though he's still moving, his thoughts are wholly elsewhere.  He’s just imagining what her small, calloused hand would feel like wrapped around his growing erection when-

“This place is awesome!” Gaige shouts, entering the room. Shocked, Zer0 finally loses his footing and lands on his butt hard.  She cringes as he hits the ground.  “Oh man, am I interrupting something?  You just weren’t there when I woke up and I wasn’t sure exactly where I was so I came to find you.  Is this your super secret ninja base?  The one where you keep your trophies?”

Gaige’s hair is loose and she’s wearing just her t-shirt and skull patterned panties.  Getting back on his feet, Zer0 makes a conscious effort to look only at her face, lust still making his skin tingle with the desire to remove all the space between them.  “Basically,” he manages to croak out.

“Cool,” she smiles, glancing around. “This room is very… old earth, pre 20th century Japanese, right?”

“14th century,” he says automatically.

She nods while continuing to look around, slowing getting closer to where he's standing.  “I like it.”  She pauses to inspect a 14th century katana perched on a stand on the wall before adding, “So what are you doing out here anyway?  Was I snoring?  Or possibly drooling on you?”

“No,” he says, hoping the remnant of his erection isn't too visible in his current pants.

“Well in that case, I was wondering if you’d maybe,” she closes the last bit of distance between them, putting a hand on his face, her cheeks pink, “like to… um… come back to bed?  With me? You know... now that I'm not way too drunk and all-”

With that point of contact, Zer0 feels the tension in him snap.  He drops his sword with a clatter and pulls her into a rough kiss.  

She kisses him back momentarily before pulling away, “Is this a yes?”

He ignores the question, ignores his own concerns about where this might be going and kisses her again.  He can feel her sigh against his lips but she still wraps her arms around his neck and tries to pull him closer.  

Eager to have more of her skin against his, he lifts her up and rolls them both to the ground.  She squeals in shock but upon finding herself safely balanced on his chest, she pushes him down with demanding kisses.

“Do you always dress like this around here?” She murmurs between kisses, running her hands along his bare chest.  “Because if you do, I don’t think I’m ever letting us leave.”

Zer0 grins as he kisses her but doesn't pause to answer, instead using this opportunity to run his tongue along Gaige's bottom lip.

She shudders, mumbling, "That's cheating," before doing it back to him and getting a similar reaction. "See what I mean," she does it again and he groans, "cheating."

And Zer0's thoroughly distracted, barely noticing how hard he is already as she starts working her way down, first kissing him under the jaw, then the neck.  He closes his eye as she keeps it up, running a hand down to a nipple and then without much warning, right onto his cock.

Zer0 gasps at the contact and Gaige yanks her hand back, pulling her face away from his neck so she can look at his face. "Shit sorry," she say, "Did I do something wrong?"

Zer0 looks up at the ceiling and tries to think of the right thing to say.  Technically, she's done nothing wrong but he's still nervous, not sure he's ready for this, to let himself go or be that vulnerable.  The last time he'd had sex was before he'd become Zer0 and he'd been fine without it all these years since.  Sex didn't interest him and it certainly didn't suit his lifestyle.  It's only now that he's grown attached to someone, that he's started to let someone in that the idea holds any appeal but no amount of desire to experience that closeness or to make Gaige come undone can entirely silence his assassin instincts, warning him that this is a mistake and one that could get him killed.  None of that is Gaige's fault though so he just says, "No," still not sure what he's going to do.

"Okay?" she says, staring at his face for a moment before rolling off of him and sitting down next to him on the floor.  "But if that's true, why do you look so tense? I mean, do you wanna… ya know or not?"

"I don't know," he says, quick and sharp, sitting up but not quite bringing himself to meet her eyes.

"What do you mean? Like if you don't want to yet, that's fine but if it's just like... I don't know, complicated or something, maybe just try explaining it to me and we can try and figuring it out together?"

Zer0 sighs, his mind racing for a good way to explaining how he's feeling to her.  He doesn't look up as he says, “A well guarded base/ hidden behind walls and traps/ you’ve snuck by them all.”

“Ohhhhh,” she says after thinking about what he’s said for a moment. “Oh,” she says again and frowns this time.  “You’re a really closed off sort of person and I’ve been worming my way into your life without ever thinking that you really wouldn’t want me in there at all.”  She looks away from him to her hands fidgeting in her lap.  “If I think about it like that, this," she gestures between the two of them as if to imply the entire scope of their relationship, "all seems pretty silly.  I’m just going to…” she stands up, attempting to pull her shirt down so it covers more of her underwear and fails, “go back to bed and let you finish up your workout.  You can take me home whenever you’re ready.”

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, flustered by how she'd interpreted his words and desperate to clear it up before she can go. He rushes to the door, reaching it and baring her exit in one fluid motion.

“What is it?" she frowns, her eyes already wet with unshed tear, "I’m trying to leave with what's left of my dignity inta-”

“To reach secure things/ requires an inside man/ I’m just a bit," he pauses and glances down at his feet so as to avoid her eyes, "scared.”

"Alright," she says, voice tentative, her eyes trying to meet his. “So you really are okay with,” she gestured between the two of them, “us?”

He leans down and says, "Yes," before running his lips across hers to emphasize that.

She grins a little but pushes on.  “And you're okay with us doing… this?  Because we can take this slower if you want.  I’m willing to wait if that would make this whole thing easier for you.  Or we could just not, if this is too much or something, we don't have to do anything, promise.”

He looks up at her and he knows she means it, knows that while she's very interested in sex she'd never want him to do something he didn't want to do just to make her happy.  But in spite of his nerves, a part of him really wants this with her and there's no safer place to do it than his ship.  He shakes his head and leans in again, this time kissing her much harder.  “No more going slow/ No more waiting in the wings/ I pick you and now.”

A smile breaks out across her face, wide and beaming.  “Okay then... if you're sure, I think I’ve got a great spot in mind.”  She grabs his hand and walks backwards out into the center of the room before yanking off her shirt and throwing it into a far corner of the room.  Then, with a mischievous smile pulling at her lips, she kisses him quickly and lays down between his legs.  

For a second he balks, his nerves feeling like a lump in his throat but he breathes out once, long and low, then settles himself on his elbows and knees right above her.  She grabs his head, running fingers across sharp cheeks and the soft peach fuzz of his scalp and he starts to feel that lump melt away.  He lets out one final, tiny sigh and closes the last of the distance, feeling as the warmth and pressure of her lips drives the last of the anxiety away.

She groans and tries to pull him closer.  “Get down here,” she grumbles between kisses. "I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be closer than that."

He relents, pushing their chests together, the brush of her cotton-covered breasts on his skin making him shudder.  Gaige smiles into the kiss and pushes on his lower back, easing him the rest of the way on top of her.  He's getting hard pretty quickly and he'd be more embarrassed about how obvious that must be to her right now if he wasn't so distracted with how good all of this feels.  He focuses mostly on not letting his full weight crush her as he deepens the kiss, pushing his tongue past her lips and into her mouth.  She responds in kind and for awhile, Zer0 loses himself to sensation.

They've been making out for a while and while Zer0 is definitely enjoying it, he knows this isn't exactly why Gaige pulled him on top of her.  She wants to have sex and Zer0 wants to give it to her; the only problem being that since it's been years since he did this, he's not sure exactly how to proceed.  He knows he could just pull down her lacy panties and work his dick into her and that she's probably already turned on enough that it would be alright.  But Zer0 remembers just enough about sex and orgasms from his long ago research to know that just stabbing a dick around inside her isn't necessarily going to hit any of the vital spots.  Time to use some more dexterous tools then.  Zer0 slides his lips along Gaige's one last time before starting to work his way down, planting nibbling kisses as he does so.

Gaige hums as Zer0 kisses her neck but cracks an eye open as he kisses near the top curve of her breast.  “What are you doing?” she finally giggles as he kisses her on the stomach.

“I'm going to give you head,” he says, scooting her legs apart so that he can more easily fit between them.

She sits bolt upright on her elbows, and stares at him with wide eyes.  “What? You don't... I mean I’m sure you can just... stick your dick in there and it will be totally fine." Her voice wavers on the word "dick" but she just smiles in a vague attempt to try and cover it up.

Zer0 sighs and stops arranging himself between her legs, looking at Gaige as he says, "That is ill advised/ I know a bit about sex/ this should work better."

Gaige's eyes grow wider and the pink of her cheeks grows deeper.  "Are you sure you want- I mean you really don't have- you can just-"

Zer0 just stares at her, cocking his head as she keeps rambling before cutting her off.  "Why so nervous now?/ Am I doing this too fast?/ I can go slower."

“No it's not that… It's just... I’ve never done this with anyone which, I mean, you probably already know but it means I kinda... just want to skip all the foreplay stuff and get to the part where you're really fucking me because I have no idea what I’m doing and I'm a bit nervous.  Not that I'll know what I'm doing then either but you know.”  She cracks an awkward smile at him as he frowns up at her from between her thighs.

"This won't be foreplay," he says, shaking his head, "getting you off is my goal/ that's why I picked this."

"Holy fuck," Gaige blushes even harder and bites her bottom lip.  "So you're... sure you want to- I mean I'm not like- shaved or anything-"

"Why would that matter?" he cocks his head at her but doesn't wait for her to answer, "if you're nervous and stalling/ we shouldn't do this."  He starts to remove himself from between her thighs and she reaches out to a hand to stop him.

"Nonononono, that's not it at all.  Like yeah, I'm pretty nervous and maybe a bit shocked that you're so gung-ho about ya know... going down on me but the thing you're not getting is that even though I'm maybe a bit on the extra nervous side, I... really like you and I really want to do this.  Like really, really, really want to do this," she says, her eyes taking in every visible inch of him with an almost predatory look.

Zer0 glances away, his cheeks heating up under her eager scrutiny.

"I mean, who wouldn't want their first time to be with someone who's super determined to give them head and yet so nervous that their perfectly calibrated robot hands are still shaking."

Zer0 looks at where his hands is resting on her thighs and frowns.  "Just misfired nerves/ in an arm you're here to fix/ it's not a big deal."

“Liar,” she says, sitting further up and taking his good arm's hand into hers. “I remember which arm you shot and it wasn't this one."  She smiles and shakes her head.  "Look, I might not generally be the paragon of good, thoughtful decision making but I’ve wanted this for awhile and you’re… important to me. So let’s give it a try, eh?"

Zer0 nod and pushes himself up to drag a slow, steady kiss across her lips.  She lets out a little groan and lays all the way back as he settles himself down low between her thighs again.  He considers pulling down her panties and getting to work immediately but considering how overwhelmed she'd been by just the idea of this, he decides to take it a bit slower.  He starts by kissing the inside of her thighs, just gentle little touches on what he knows to be sensitive skin.  She makes a pleased noise as he works his way higher and higher up her thigh until he's right next to her vulva.  Then after a moment's hesitation, he kisses her there too, pressing slightly firmer, nibbling kisses into the cute cotton underwear.

"Ooh," Gaige breaths in, "That's kinda nice.  Am I supposed to be doing anything right now, ya know, to make this easier for you?"

Zer0 shakes his head "no" but doesn't stop kissing her as he works his hands up her thighs to the band of her panties.  He pushes his fingers under the elastic but doesn't pull them down immediately, continuing to kiss her as if nothing has changed.  He keeps that up for a few minutes, noting the increased frequency of little noises Gaige is making as he caresses her vulva through the cotton.

"Fuck," she huffs out, "why are you such a mean tease?"  She shifts her body upwards which also makes him pull the band down slightly.  "If you don't finish taking my underwear off here soon, I'm going to do it myself."

Zer0 raises his eyebrows and smiles, planting one last firm kiss to her underwear before sitting up and asking, "Are you ready?"

Gaige props herself up on her elbows and glares down at him.  "I was ready before-" she starts but cuts herself off as Zer0 pulls her underwear down, first to above her knees, then after getting out of the way, pulling it all the way off her legs.  Gaige squeaks and looks away from Zer0, the pink of her cheeks spreading as Zer0 takes in her current appearance from head to foot.  Just as stated, she's not shaved but instead has the expected field of soft, red curls covering her vulva.  "I wasn't expecting… well any of this really," Gaige rambles at the ground, "and I definitely didn't pack enough razors when I was fleeing Eden-5 and-"

Zer0 cuts her off, shaking his head and saying, "I already said/ that does not matter to me/ You're fine as you are."

Gaige, still blushing bright red, glances up and grins.  "Really?  You mean that?"

Zer0 rolls his eyes before leaning in to peck her on the lips. "Yes.  Now let me work," he says, lowering himself to between her legs again.

"Fuck," Gaige says, biting her bottom lip and shifting her hips, "How the hell do you make a word like work sound so hot?"

Zer0 chuckles but doesn't answer, a bit too focused on remembering what he needs to do next to think up a flirty response.  Now he knows basically where the clitoris is and he knows that it's the most sensitive part of the vulva but he also vaguely remembers that he shouldn't just go straight for it and ignore everything else as that can be overstimulating or just generally ineffective.  He uses both hands and gently pries the outer labia apart, studying her and deciding on his basic plan of attack.  After a moment's consideration, Zer0 closes the last of the distance and runs his tongue along her inner labia. Gaige lets out a little groan so he does it again, this time going slower and making sure to contact more of her.  

"Holy shit," she huffs, subconsciously shifting her vulva towards Zer0 as he starts to pull back.  Gaige realizes what she's done and her eyes get wide. "I'm sorry- I'm not trying to be bossy I swear-"

"Don't be," Zer0 shakes his head and reaches out to take her hand before placing it on the back of his head. "Let me know what you like."

"Ohh," Gaige says, her mouth hanging open in shock for a moment. Then she grins and says, "In that case, more of that please."

Zer0 nods and without his eyes ever leaving Gaige's, pressing his tongue along her again.  She shudders and a little wave of pleasure flows through him.  More of this indeed.

He settles into a slow rhythm at first, taking cues from Gaige's voice, hand and face as to how hard or fast she want him to be licking her.  In the past, he'd always thought that the faces and noises people make during sex were rather silly but right now, Gaige's eager reactions to him are more than just useful cues to help him accomplish his goal, they're arousing and alarmingly so.  He's been fluctuating from slightly turgid to rock solid ever since he woke up but right now, he's on the very hard end and probably leaking precum all over his hakama.  He decides not to worry about it though, just enjoying the heat curling in his gut as he runs his tongue along her over and over.   

"Can you do... I don't know... more?" she pants out after a few minutes.  

He nods and tries out using his lips, brushing them along her labia and clit once slowly and watching her reaction.

"Oh yeah like that but like," she shakes her head slightly, "I don't know harder maybe.  I'm really not sur-" she cuts herself off with a gasp as he runs his lips along her again, this time applying more pressure. "Yes that," she manages to get out after a moment.

Zer0 just keeps it up, slowly shifting his focus from her labia to her clit.  He notices after a few passes that the structure itself is covered by a small hood so he pulls back his face so he can locate it more accurately and then using one of his hands, pulls back the hood before leaning back in to lick her again.  Gaige lets out a whimper and Zer0 tries again, this time being a little more gentle.  She groans, clearly a bit more happy and the sound goes right to his cock, though he's pretty sure he can't be any harder than he already is.  Gentle it is then.

Tentative touches with lips and tongue slowly grow more intense until Zer0's basically sucking on her clit, Gaige's volume and the strength with which she's holding onto his head encouraging him along the way.

"Oh god," Gaige pants out between moans, "I'm really fucking close but I'm not sure what I need.  Like I usually... use a dildo so maybe- some more inside stuff?"

Zer0 nearly stops what he's doing to smack himself in the head because of course she needs internal stimulation too, that's part of the reason he picked this act in particular.  He'd just gotten so into what he was doing, revelling the faces and noises she's been making as he's worked that he'd forgotten what his plan had been in the first place.  He pulls back his face so he can get a better idea where her vaginal entrance is before slowly and gently pushing the index finger of his good hand into her, a bit surprised by just how warm and wet she is inside.

"Holy fuck," she says as his finger enters her, "that's- your finger right?"

"Yes, is it too cold or something? I can-" Zer0 starts to mentally access the temperature controls for his arms but Gaige cuts him off.

"Nono, it's great. Actually, it's more than great... it's more like- 'holy shit the most beautiful piece of tech I've ever seen is inside me this is the hottest thing I can possibly imagine fuck.'" Gaige says the whole last part in one breath, almost as if it's just one word.

Zer0 just blinks back at her, momentarily forgetting all about his task.  Then he breaks out laughing, shock over how attracted she is to him fading into amusement at her ability to ramble in any situation.  

Gaige's eyes grow wide and she starts shaking her head a little.  "Oh no, I fucked it up didn't I?  Like sex is ruined forever because I have a raging tech kink and can't keep my dumb mouth shut, yeah?"

Zer0 shakes his head, still laughing as he gently pulls his finger out of her and leans up to kiss her.  "Not even close," he says, dragging his lips along hers before sliding his tongue into her mouth.  He realizes as he does it that his mouth must tastes like her but she doesn't seem to mind, only pausing for a second before returning the kiss with equal enthusiasm.  Zer0 loses himself for a moment to the feeling of their lips and tongue sliding together before pulling back and smiling.  

She grins back at him.  "You really don't mind?"

Zer0 shakes his head as he moves back into position.  "That you find me hot?/ That would be quite dumb of me/ and self defeating."

She chuckles a little which turns into a gasp as he careful puts two fingers from his good hand into her.  "Fuck," she says as he starts to move them inside her, curling them just slightly forward as he pulls them in and out.  "You hands are so cool and- complex, I can almost feel the quality joint work every time you- curl them like that fuck," she gasps.  

He feels around inside her as he keeps his fingers moving, searching for a rougher textured spot, his eyes trained on her for any slight tell that he's getting close.  It turns out to be an unnecessary precaution because when he brushes her g-spot for the first time, she screams loudly, her whole body jerking at the contact.

"A- bit softer at first but like right fucking there, alright?" she says but he's already adjusting, making sure to just push gently on that spot as he works his fingers in and out.  He does that for a while, slowly increasing the pressure and revelling in the her responses before finally using his one free hand to help expose her clit and bringing his mouth in close.  She lets out a loud moan as his tongue touches her clit and before too long she's coming, all loud screams and desperate pleas for him to keep doing exactly what he's doing, her iron grip digging her metal hand just slightly into his skin.  And as Zer0 watches and feels Gaige come undone, a strange combination of success and something tight in his chest washes over him and he's shocked to find that it's one of best rushes he's felt in years.  If he was thinking at all, he might be scared of what that means but right now he's not thinking, he's just enjoying it as Gaige screams high and loud, shifting her body back and forth to ride his fingers a bit better.  He tries to mirror the motion she's doing on his end and she gasps before letting out a high pitch squeak and collapsing onto her back.

"Okay stop stop" she says, after a moment, her voice ragged from all the screaming.

"Why?" Zer0 says, pulling his fingers out but not moving his face away from her vulva.

She groans at the loss before saying, "Because I'm going to pass out if we keep doing this, alright?" She tilts her head up just slightly so that she can see him. "Are you like completely sure you don't know what you're doing because evidence says otherwise."

"You're just a good teacher."

"What does that mean?" she shakes her head as she sets it back down.  "Like I had any idea what you were doing down there."

"The way you react/ is so uninhibited/ makes my job easy." He grins, taking in the soft curves of her body as her breathing starts to return to normal.

"If you say so," she says. "Now stop being lame and get up here and make out with me for a bit while I reboot my brain."

Zer0 complies, laying on his side next to her before bringing their lips together, the ache of his erection finally coming to the forefront of his mind now that he's not so distracted. It brushes just slightly against her thigh and he has to use most of his willpower not to grind against her.

"Oh shit," she says, obviously noticing the hard dick touching her.  "It's like way your turn, you've got to be going nuts with how long you've been waiting."

"I'm fine," he says, gasping a little as her thigh shifts and moves the cotton covering his dick more.

"Uh huh," she says, rolling her eyes and pushing Zer0 onto his back.  He breathes in sharply as she climbs on top of him and then slides down between his legs.  "Which is why you're nearly shuddering from my tinest touches, yeah?"  Zer0 doesn't answer as Gaige examines his hakama, her eyes roaming from his very pronounced erection to the knot that's keeping them up.  She goes to untie it and Zer0 holds his breath, a bit more nervous about Gaige seeing him naked than is logical considering the circumstances. The next moment, she pulling his pants down to his knees, her eyes eagerly scrutinizing his penis, her cheeks growing slightly pink.  She bites her bottom lip and says, "Mmm nice," and Zer0's blushing in an instance, really not used to someone finding him this attractive.  She notices he's watching her and blushes harder.  "Sorry, I'm just… excited?  For your dick.  And you're already like crazy hard from what I can tell.  So even though I might still be a bit out of it, I'm thinking I'm just going to climb on this bad boy and see how it goes, alright?  As she finishes saying that, she starts moving out from between his legs, climbing up until she's straddling right below his dick.  He can feel her warm, soft thighs against his own metal ones and the feeling goes right to his already way too hard dick.  She considers his penis for a moment before lifting one of her legs up and outwards, her flesh hand reaching to guide him into her.

"Wait," he says right as she's about to touch him, nerves temporarily getting the best of him.

"Wait?" she says, slowly letting her thigh return to its resting position.  "Are you alright?"  Zer0 nods so she continues, "Or... are you just worried you'll get me pregnant?  Because let me tell you, we're super safe on that front; I've been taking birth control for completely non sexy reasons forever so we should be good."

Zer0 blinks up at her, confused about how the conversation went this way.  "I'm already sterile," he says.

"Oh," she says, "Then I guess we really really don't need to worry about it."  She look down at him and cocks her head.  "What were you asking me to wait for then?  Have you changed your mind?  Because you still can, that's cool with me... though I might feel a bit guilty if that's the case."

"No," Zer0 says immediately, "I still want this.../ Could you... maybe kiss me first?/ I think it will help."  He props himself on his elbows but doesn't meet her eyes, embarrassed that he's still so nervous after everything they've done already.

"Of course," she says, smile audible even though he's not looking at her.  "Though you might need to sit up more, you're lips are pretty far away from here."

Zer0 nods, sitting most of the way up but makes sure to keep his back bowed so that Gaige will to able to reach him.  Gaige scoots in closer and too late Zer0 realizes that by asking her to do this, he's also kinda asked her to sandwich his dick between his stomach and her still wet vulva.  He shudders at the contact, his hips jerking upwards all on their own.

"This still oka-" she asks, concern obvious in her tone.

"Yes," Zer0 says, closing the last of the distance between their lips with a crushing kiss.  Gaige reciprocates immediately, her tongue pushing past his lips as she shifts her body slightly, grinding harder again Zer0 without probably meaning too.  He moans into her mouth, and pushes back, his dick desperate for any friction it can get.

"Do you- want- to get- in me- now?" she says in between kisses, now actively shifting herself up and down so as to grind against him.

"Yeah," he pants, wanting nothing more than to be inside her.

"Hold up," she says, pulling her face and body away slightly.  "I'm going to need-"

"I know," he cuts her off, watching with bated breath as she reaches down and grabs his dick before lifting up her thigh and gently guiding it into her.

Zer0 lets out a loud moan as he settles inside her, the warm, tight space surrounding his dick with a sort of consistent pressure that he's completely unaccustomed to.

"Holy fuck," Gaige says at the same time, "that's really fucking nice."  She lets out a little groan as she shifts her hips slightly, then slowly slides herself up and down the length of his cock, moaning as she does it.

Zer0 gasps but holds himself still, just trying to keep himself from letting loose and thrusting into her as hard and fast as he can.

"You feel amazing in me," she says as she slowly moves up and down, biting her bottom lip and closing her eyes as she rides him.  

Zer0 nods his head before stuttering out, "Yeah," his mind so focused on how good Gaige feels that he can barely think.

"Do you want me to do anything in particular?" she pants out as she keep moving.  "Harder? Faster? Or should I just keep doing whatever I want?"

"Just keep moving," Zer0 say, thrusting up in to her as she pushes down on him and causing her to scream. "And kiss me," he says, pressing a sloppy, firm kiss to her already red lips.

She kisses him back and one- two- three matched thrusts later he's coming, the combination of her lips on his and her warm, tight friction too much for his incredibly aroused body.  His whole body tightens as he comes and his mind goes blank.  He screams into her mouth (much louder than he intended) and she pulls back to watch him, still working his cock but with a bit less fervor than before. And if he wasn't so blissed out of his mind, he might be a bit embarrassed that he came so quickly but he's pretty sure that right now there's no room amongst all the endorphins and thoughts of Gaige for shame. Eventually though the sharp rush of his orgasm starts to fade away and his mind begins to cloud, just a haze of lingering endorphins and exhaustion.

"Hey Zer0, can you hear me? Are you alright?" Gaige asks as if she's said this several times, no longer moving but still sitting on his quickly growing flaccid cock. He thinks he might like her still being there.  It's nice to have her this close.

Zer0 nods.

"Okay good, you just weren't answering and like it's not a big deal or anything but... you came really quickly, right?"

Zer0 nods, trying to pull together a haiku to explain but he can't seem to hold or remember the syllable counts for long as if he can't access some of his higher brain functions right now.  He mumbles out, "Been a long time… and never with someone like you… just not used to it," before collapsing to the ground, his arms no longer wanting to hold him up.  As his back hits the floor, a searing pain flies up his left arm, locking up as it goes and cutting right through the happy haze in his brain.  He tries to access the pain shut off for that arm but even after a couple of tries it doesn't do anything so he gives up, taking in a slow deep breath to help deal with the pain instead.

Oblivious to his sudden change in condition, Gaige lays herself down on his chest, rubbing her cheek slightly on his pec as she says, "You know, that's actually really sweet."

"Is it?"  Zer0 hiss out, not remembering what he's just said and now realizing that even though he's in horrible pain, the last thing he wants to do is make Gaige get up and ruin their post coitus cuddling.

"I know, shocking," she laughs before propping herself up slightly on her arms and turning her head to look at him.  He glances down at her and she's got a bit of a mischievous grin going.  "Soooo," she says dragging the O's out for awhile, "Want to do that again?"

"Can't," Zer0 shakes his head, breathing through his nose and trying to focus on how nice having Gaige curled up on his chest feels and failing.

"Oh right, refractory periods and stuff yeah?"

Zer0 considers letting her think that for a moment because he doesn't want to ruin what's otherwise been a great first time with worrying her and she's not wrong that his dick won't be ready to go for probably a while still.  Of course, he also knows that he'd be more than happy to just give her head over and over again until he's capable of holding an erection and that she'll eventually figure out he's in horrible pain no matter what he does so he sighs and says, "No, it is my arm/ I think it's finally locked up/ it hurts quite a bit."

"Fuck," Gaige says, sitting bolt upright and rolling off him.  "I knew I was supposed to be doing something.  You just distracted me with your ridiculously sexy shirtlessness and orgasms."  She glances around for a moment before finding her underwear and pulling them on with an awkward  sort of haste.  "Come on," she glances down at him and offers him a hand up, obviously wondering why he's still laying on the ground.

He stares at her wide eyed and tries one last time to figure out how he could possibly retie the knot for his hakama with just one hand and doesn't come to a workable solution so he just sighs and flips himself up to his feet and out of his pants before striding out of the room like he'd meant to do just that.  Gaige shakes her head and then follows him down the hall to his workshop, Zer0 almost sure he can feel her gaze on his butt as they go.  Once there, he sits himself down on the only unoccupied piece of counter, leaving the stool for Gaige, the pain in his arm making his vision swim a bit.  He breathes through his nose, tries to get it under better control and mostly fails.  

Gaige enters the room and stops, her eyes growing wide as she takes in all the neatly arranged parts and tools lining every surface and shelf.  "Holy shit," she says, her eyes settling on one tool. "Is this a plasmatronic oscillator?"  Her eyes flit to another tool, "And this is a nano solderer?  I could use one of those."

"You may need it now," Zer0 says, "I am not sure what you did/ use what tools you need."

"Ahhh right," Gaige says, grinning at him wickedly while shooting a finger gun in his direction, "you need my help because my temp fix is beyond your capability to understand let alone repair back to normal on your own."

"You remember that?" Zer0 blushes, his current nudity not helping his embarrassment levels in the slightest.  

"Of course," she says, shaking her head and coming over to start analyzing his arm.  "Even drunk me knew that you admitting I'm better than you at something was a momentous occasion I needed to preserve of all eternity.  Also," she bobs her head back and forth to an unheard beat, "I remember you saying we couldn't have sex because I was too drunk.  And I remember me totally kicking Axton's ass in a debate.  I feel like I remember most of it actually.  Must have been Sal making me drink all that water, eh?"

Zer0 just stares dumbfounded at the top of her head.  "You called me a comfortable plank."

"Yup," she nods, eyes still scanning his arm, "And I meant it.  You're the most comfortable plank, with a hot ass and the cutest smile no one but me will ever get to see to boot."

Zer0 glances away from her, his cheeks burning even hotter.  "Stop it, just fix my arm."

"Nope," she says, blowing a raspberry at him.  "Pretty sure I can multitask this." She gives his arm one more glance over and says, "I'm going to need you get lower, probably sit on the stool for now but you really should get one of those hydraulic chairs.  It would make my job a hell of a lot easier especially because you're so tall."

Zer0 doesn't mention that the reason he doesn't have one of those is because no one but him has ever been on this ship and therefore no one but him has ever made repairs to his limbs.  He just nods and hops off the counter and on to the stool while Gaige goes and grabs the tools and parts she thinks she'll need.  She's back a moment later, scanning his arm one last time before she starts tearing into it, bad part flying everywhere while salvageable ones get set on the counter beside him.  

A minute later, the pain fades away and she's smiling down at her handiwork.  "Pain should be better now, right?" she says, glancing up from her work to check his face.

"Yes," he nods and smiles, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet, I only removed the misfiring cybernerves so basically I'm not even close to fixing my mistake."

"It was my mistake," Zer0 corrects her, "I did this all to myself/ do not blame yourself."

Gaige shakes her head, "I just… I don't know, I don't like that my repairs hurt you is all.  I know that's dumb-"

"I don't think it's dumb," he cuts her off, "to do so much but then fail/ can be frustrating."

"That's not what I-" she stops what she's saying and shakes her head, "nevermind.  Anyway, at least we're not racing against your pain tolerance anymore so that's good."

Zer0 cocks his head at her, not sure what he's misunderstood but she ignores the gesture, focusing all of her attention on her work for a bit.  She doesn't seem mad at least, only a little disappointed and she also seems to be enjoying working on his arm so that's good.  He watches her as she works, the combination of her impressive skill and her current state of dress making the experience a slightly erotic one, though the cold temperature of his ship keeps it from also becoming an incredibly embarrassing one.  

She's removed all the broken parts and started to replace them when she finally breaks the silence.  "Hey, I was wondering… do you think you could tell more about yourself?  You know now that we've been intimate-"

"You know that I can't," Zer0 shakes his head, annoyed that Gaige had forgotten how this has to work, "the less you know the better/ secrets keep you safe."

"Nonono," Gaige rolls her eyes but doesn't look up from her work, "I don't mean any of your stupid assassin stuff, I mean the important stuff like what's your favorite movie?  Or your favorite ECHOsim?  Or your favorite flavor of ice cream?  You know, normal people stuff?"

Zer0 blinks down at the top of her head, the nature of her questions throwing him off balance.  It isn't that he doesn't like things like a normal person, it's more that he rarely thinks about those parts of himself, focusing mostly on the human weapon aspect of who he is.  But here Gaige is, asking about who he is when he isn't killing people and the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that telling her that kind of stuff isn't any more dangerous than anything she already knows.  He sighs, a part of him regretting his decision already as he says, "Shichinin no Samurai, Nightmare Spirits, and I don't eat."

It takes Gaige a second to register what he's saying, but when she does, she looks up from his arm and smiles huge and bright.  "Okay so I don't speak Japanese so I have no idea what movie you're talking about, but I do know Nightmare Spirits and now that I think about it, it's kinda obvious that you'd be into it since it's so blisteringly difficult.  Also what do you mean you don't eat?  I'm pretty sure you only need to have eaten like once in you life to have a favorite ice cream flavor anyway."

Zer0 laughs but answers her questions as best he can, even kinda promising to show her Seven Samurais someday.  And from there, she just asks more questions about even more inane things and he answers them if he thinks he can safely.  And sometimes she takes a break from asking questions to tell him some of her favorite things as well.  And he already knows some of them because he's already listened to every episode of her ECHOcast but he's not going to tell her that so he just listens intently and nods.  They've been doing this back and forth for maybe a half an hour, with Gaige working intently on his arm as they chat and Zer0 just staring at her, only a little distracted by the fact that she's in her underwear when Gaige says, "And done," sliding the final piece back into place and beaming at her handiwork.  "Test it out for me, eh?"

Zer0 nods and after a quick test of finger mobility and joint flexibility, reaches out and puts the hand on her cheek, running his thumb along her cheekbone.  

She blushes but pushes her face into his hand.  "You know, 'test out your arm' doesn't always mean 'put your hand on my face,' right?"

"Are you sure?" he says, a smile pulling at his lips, "Seems to work just fine."

Gaige shakes her head and leans in to kiss him, and Zer0 meets her halfway.  The kissing progresses rapidly and soon, Zer0's starting to get aroused, his dick hopping slightly every time her tongue brushes his. It's right around then that she pulls away and asks, "So wait, I know this is your super secret ninja base and all but where exactly are we?"

"Low orbit around Pandora," he says quickly before leaning back in to kiss her again, not wanting to talk about this right now.

She pecks him lightly but pulls back immediately, her eyes wide as she says, "We're in space?  This is a spaceship?"

"Obviously-" he starts to say but she cuts him off.

"Holy shit, a real spaceship?  Oh my god, you have to give me a tour, can I see the engine room?  I bet if you give me just a bit of time with it-"

Gaige flies off on a tangent and Zer0 watches her enthusiasm with a combination of regret and fondness, only a little disappointed that he probably just cockblocked himself.  She's just mentioning how being in space is one of the coolest things she can imagine when her eyes drift down to his slightly formed erection and she cuts herself off mid sentence.  She bites her bottom lips and says, "On the other hand, we could just have sex now and you'll give me tour after, alright?"

Zer0 chuckles slightly and nods before pulling Gaige off of her feet and into his arms, knowing that they'll probably end up on the floor before too long but just wanting her close for the moment.  "Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think this story has about one more chapter left in it but don't be too sad; Zer0 and Gaige are two of my favorite characters to write and I already have some more ideas for what is going happen to them once this one is over.


	7. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaige continues to be on Zer0's ship while Zer0 starts to think that he might just like having her there.

Two and a half orgasms later, Zer0's on his back starting at the ceiling of his workshop, a warm, pliant and nude Gaige nestled on his chest, his arms wrapped gently around her back.  This is an angle he'd never expected to see this room from but his brain isn't really focused on taking it in, still blissed out and mostly thinking about Gaige.  He moves one of his hands up into her hair and starts running his fingers through it absentmindedly, rubbing the skin there as he does it.

"Mmmmm," she hums into his chest, lethargic and happy, "If you keep doing that, I don't know how you expect me to conjure the willpower to climb off you and set you free."

"Why would I want that?" Zer0 says without thinking before immediately cursing how stupid and smitten he sounds.

Gaige doesn't seem to mind though, and is in fact visibly pleased when she peels her face off his chest and grins up at him.  "No reason at the moment, though eventually I do want you to show me around your super secret space ship.  But not right now; for now it's cuddling time."  

"Alright," he laughs and she turns her face back into his chest, rubbing her cheek against the scared expanse.   For a fleeting moment, a worry about how little he's thinking before speaking crosses his mind but he shoves it aside easily, his heart clenching in his chest as he watches her, his fingers still busily playing with her hair.

Once the heat from each other stops being enough to stave off the cold from the floor, Gaige grumbles and hesitantly pulls herself off Zer0, her eyes taking in his still very naked form as she goes.  Zer0 feels a bit self conscious about that (ludicrous as that is at this point), but tries to hide his embarrassment as he stands up and goes to leave the room.

"Where are you going?" Gaige says, trailing slightly behind him as she pulls back on her underwear.

"If you want a tour/ then I'll need my hakama/ I won't go naked," Zer0 calls over his shoulder as he reaches his training room.  

He's just pulling his pants back on, his back to the door when Gaige reaches the door frame and leans in, saying, "Goodbye sweet ass.  I'll miss you."

Zer0 scoffs, "It's not like you'll never see it again," and immediately cringes because that was a really telling thing to say.  It's not that he wants the sex to stop or for Gaige to feel like everytime she sees him naked might be the last; It's more that he's saying these things so casually, like it's already normal.  Maybe it even is.

Gaige is grinning when he turns around to face her.  He glances at her mostly naked form and once he quells the urge for his brain to go right back to sex, he raises an eyebrow at her.  "You might want clothes too."

Gaige eyes grow wide and her cheeks pink as she nervously chuckles, her arms slowly coming up to cross in front of her breasts.  "Well, I was thinking about just going like this, you know, just to drive you crazy but it  is rather cold so... sure.  I'll just need to," she enters the room and starts to glance around, "find them."

"Shirt's right there," he says, pointing over his shoulder at the corner she'd throw it in earlier, "your bra's still in the workshop/ skirt's in my bedroom."

"Thanks," she says, still blushing as she grabs her shirt and heads out of the room to grab the rest of her clothes.  Zer0 thinks for a second then goes to grab an uwagi from the drawer he'd pulled his hakama out of earlier, hoping to avoid the very real possibility of them pausing in every room to ravish each other silly.

"Alright, I'm ready for the grand touaww," Gaige calls as she reenters the room, all her clothes except her tights back on, her pleased expression and her words trailing off just slightly as she notices that Zer0's wearing a top.  "Is the shirt really necessary?  I mean come on, you wear full armor ninety-nine percent of the time, why not do me a favor and let me savor this illusive sight a bit longer?"

Zer0 shakes his head, chuckling slightly but otherwise doesn't dignify her comment with a response.  Instead he turns around and thinks for a moment, wondering suddenly why he'd agreed to give her a tour in the first place. This place is his and his alone; not another soul but her had ever been up here and because of that, it's his safest and most secret place.  But he's already invited her up here, had allowed her the freedom to wander around unsupervised, had even been as vulnerable as a person can be with her up here, surely a short tour explaining what the function of each room is couldn't do any more harm than what's already been done.

His mind made up, he starts the tour with the room they're currently in: his training room.  He states the room's purpose and points out what he considers to be its most interesting features (real tatami floors and the sword she'd noticed earlier which also happens to be the first thing he'd ever stolen), before quickly figuring out that he doesn't really know what else to say.  He lets an awkward silence hang between them for only a moment before giving up and heading off to the next room.  Gaige seems like she briefly hesitates, almost as if she wants to ask a question but if she does, she keeps it to herself as she dutifully follows after him.  The same thing happens again in his bedroom, and again in the bathroom and then again in his workshop; each time he rushes through a quick explanation and then hurries on to the next room while Gaige seems eager to ask questions but unwilling to possibly bother him.  

When they reach the small cockpit though and the two of them are only able to stand in the hallway outside it as Zer0 explains it's rather obvious purpose, Gaige seems to finally have had enough.

"Hey wait up," she says, grabbing his wrist as turns to head back down the hallway and off to the final stop of the tour.

He pauses and turns back to face her, her tone making him preemptively nervous.

"You know you don't have to do this, right?" she says, her tone flippant but her expression guarded, "That I won't be mad if you want this ship to stay a part of your big mysterious assassin shit?"

Zer0 cocks his head at her, not sure exactly what he's done wrong but certain that it's something.  Was he really acting like he didn't want to do this?  Like he didn't trust Gaige after everything else that had happened between them?   Possibly , he decides after thinking back over his actions.  "I didn't intend/ to make you feel unwelcome/ you're just my first guest," he shrugs, expression sheepish.

"I figured that much out," she shakes her head a little. "But I still stick by what I said; just because I want to know all about you doesn't mean you have to tell me.  Hell, I've probably already super overstayed my welcome.  You did only bring me up here to fix your arm and all."

"No," Zer0 says, the word rushing out of him reflexively before he's even had a chance to think about it.  He pauses, his mind racing for a coherent haiku minus one syllable that will adequately explain how much he's enjoyed having her up here with him.  "Please don't go yet/ you need to see the engine/ I think you'll like it," he mumbles out, then mentally smacks himself because that doesn't really cover what he'd wanted to say at all.

"Alright," Gaige says, crossing her arms in front of herself as she frowns just slightly, "If you're sure."

Zer0 frowns, his mind racing for a way to make his point more clear before just leaning down and brushing his lips against hers. "I'm completely sure," he whispers.

The corners of Gaige's lips quirk up with a quick chuckle and then she kisses him back, a bit harder and more open mouthed.  Zer0 returns the kiss, sliding his tongue over her lower lip and then into her mouth and before he knows it, they're making out in the hallway, Gaige's back to the wall as Zer0 holds her up.  

"You know," she mummers out between kisses, "your kissing make a hell of a lot more sense than your words sometimes."  She leans back in and runs her tongue along Zer0's bottom lip before adding, "Like right now, you're totally telling me you like having me here and you're just the literal worst at talking about your stuff."  

Zer0 chuckles, "Is that so?"

"Yup," she says, pecking him on the lips before adding, "that  is what you were trying to say earlier, yeah?"

"Close enough," Zer0 nods, pushing Gaige harder into the wall as he brings their lips back together.

She lets out a little gasp, melting into the kiss for a moment before she pulls her face away, saying, "Wait, weren't you going to take me to this puppy's engine?  Or has that been rescheduled to right after the hallway sex now?"  She waggles her eyebrows and grins.

Zer0 pulls his face further back from Gaige's, the realization that he'd got distracted from his task so easily shaking him out of his lust stupor.  "We could have sex here," he says, frowning slightly, "probably shouldn't right now/ the tours almost done." He pecks Gaige gently on the lips and then sets her down.

"Oh alright," she smiles up at him before shifting her attention to straightening her skirt, "if you're going to be so practical about it."

Zer0 nods and is halfway to the engine room by the time Gaige says, "Wait, was that a promise for future hallway sex?"

"I made no such promise," Zer0 says without even turning around.  He can hear Gaige chuckling under her breath as he pulls the engine room door open.

"Woah," she says, striding right past him, her eyes locked on the engine.  "I've never seen one this big up close before."  She starts strafing around the engine, trying to get a good look at it from all sides, "Though... I have looked at a lot of technical diagrams and the similarities between this and your standard lawnmower engine are more than you'd expect really."  She paces around the engine for a few more moments before adding, "I mean, I'm not an expert at spaceship engines or anything but I'm at least ninety percent sure that if you could get me a flux inhibitor, a regulator coil and the original schematics for this engine, I could make this baby work at least ten percent better."  With this final statement, she turns to look at him, eyes wide and hands on her hips.  Zer0 feels like his heart is melting from how fond of her he is right now.  

He nods, grabs a binder containing the original schematic from a shelf near the door and hands it to her.  "Alright, any other suggestions?"

Gaige opens the binder reverently, her eyes devouring the pages for a moment before she looks back up at Zer0 and smiles, "Give me a few minutes with this bad boy, and you bet I will."

****

An hour later, Gaige has a laundry list of parts she'd need to improve Zer0's engine and he's somehow managed to keep her from actually taking the engine apart in the process of making this list.

"If I could just get a better look at the inner manifold..." Gaige says, leaning in with hands outstretched.

"Then we would both die," Zer0 says, pulling her hands away from the engine and back to her sides, "we can't lose engine power/ or space will take us."

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes at him, "We'd only lose engine power if I screwed up removing the catalizer…" Zer0 cringes and readies himself to pull her away from the engine again. "But alright," she continues, "I guess that list is good enough for now.  At least until I really crack this bad boy open and see what else could be improved."

Zer0 nods absentmindedly, his attention already switched over to skimming the list as he considers the best places to obtain these parts.

"You really mean it?" Gaige beams up at him, eyes wide.  "You'll let me come back and actually work on your engine?"

Zer0's eyes snap up from the list to Gaige's face, his brain racing to come up with the right answer.  From a purely logical standpoint, though it pains his pride to admit it, Gaige is the better mechanic of the two of them so it would be in his ship's best interests to allow her to do the repairs.  On the other hand though, his assassin's instincts are bristling at the thought of inviting her back into his secret space once he's gotten her out.  Once is a mistake, a small slip up, but a second time would be insanity.  He shakes his head, hoping to bat the thought away.  If Gaige had wanted to kill him, he'd be dead a hundred times over.  He trusts her, no matter what his killer instincts think.  Yes, it was a risk to bring her back here but it was… calculable, containable and therefore, acceptable.

"Maybe," he says, a slight pull at the corners of his lips betraying the 'yes' he's trying to hide.  "I need to get these parts first."

"Ohhh, I can help with that too.  We're going to steal them, right?"

Zer0 grins a little bit wider and nods. "For some of them, yes/ others we will bulk order/ subterfuge is key."

"Right," Gaige tries to look serious and fails, waggling her finger at him, "Gotta be sneaky."

Zer0 shakes his head and musses up her hair before walking out of the engine room with the list in hand.

"Are we starting now?" she follows after him, her hands busily working to fix her hair.

"No, I need to do research first."

"Oh, right," she says, disappointment obvious in her tone.  "Guess that means I should get out of your hair for now, yeah?"

Zer0 spins around and cocks his head at Gaige.  While the suggestion is practical, and it would be easier for him to focus on finding good places to obtain these parts without her here, he hadn't been considering asking her to leave yet at all.  The engine upgrade is a long term project after all and he's sure there is still enough Hyperion stragglers on Pandora to keep him mostly occupied for another week or two.  "You don't have to," he says, the corners of his lips turning up slightly.

"Really?" she says, eyebrows shooting up as she starts to smile, "You sure I'm not getting in the way?"

"Yes," he nods, then turns around and starts to walk away.

"In that case," she says, speeding up slightly so as to catch up with him, "What are we doing?"

Zer0, for once in their relationship, knows exactly what to do.  "Educating you," he says, shaking his head, "your knowledge of classic films/ is grossly lacking."

"Hey," Gaige says, bumping him gently with her hip, "Are you talking about that samurai movie you like?  Because I'm sure it's great and all but it's not the only classic in the galaxy.  Have you ever heard of Pacific Rim? Or The Fifth Element?  Because I'm pretty sure they're both like hundreds of years old-"

They reach the door to his room and Zer0 steps through it first and turns around to cut her off, bracing his hands and the list on the door frame, "No and they don't count/ old does not a classic make/ and mine's still older."

She rolls her eyes.  "Do you think it's at all possible for you to stop being an elitist jerk for like a second?"

"By elitist, do you mean right?" he smirks.

"Ugh," Gaige groans.  She scowls at him for a moment before her eyes get wide. Then, looking him up and down, she closes the gap between them and bites her bottom lip before reaching out and tickling him.

Immediately he stops bracing the door, the list crashing to the ground as his muscles spasm.  He lets out a stifled little giggle and Gaige pushes past him and into the room, her fingers still wiggling on his sides.

"Admit you're being an asshole," she says, backing him up to a wall.

In a flash, he's reaching down, grabbing her wrist and spinning them around so that now she's the one with her back to the wall.  "Never," he laughs.

She blinks up at him in stunned silence for a moment and then reaches out and starts tickling him again.  This time he immediately starts tickling her back.

"Don't think you've won," she chuckles out, her hands barely moving as she squirms, "just cause you're a freaking ninja."

Zer0 looks down at her smiling, pink face, the color making it's way down her neck and to her shirt collar and at the moment, the thing he wants to do most is kiss her so he does.  She makes a little noise as his lips cut off her laugh but then deepens the kiss, pushing her tongue past his lips and into his mouth. He groans and picks her up, pushing her back into the wall as he does so.

"This isn't over," she mutters out between kisses, "once I fuck your brains out, we're coming right back to this."

"Fine," Zer0 says, working his way to the crook of her neck with bruising kisses.  It's not like she's really going to remember by then anyway.

***

Half an hour later they're sweaty and panting on Zer0's small bed, Gaige resting on Zer0's chest as she breathes.  And he knows it's impossible to literally have your brains fucked out but at the moment, it sure doesn't feel like it.  

He's running his fingers through her hair and sighing happily when Gaige jerks up, propping herself up so that she can look him in the face.  Zer0 tries very hard to not stare at her now  exposed breasts as she says, "So anyway, all I was trying to say before I got so rudely interrupted was... you're a butt," Zer0 opens his mouth to counter that but Gaige puts a hand on his lips and keeps talking, "and that this buttness is keeping you from seeing lots of movies I know you'd love… like Pacific Rim for example.  Or maybe the Lone Assassin movies?  Hmmm," she says, looking away from him as she thinks.

Zer0 goes to talk again but immediately gives up due to Gaige's hand still being on his mouth. Instead, he pushes his tongue against her hand and once he has her attention, cocks his head at her, raises his eyebrows and hopes she'll get his meaning.

"What?" she cocks her head back at him, then suddenly realizing she's still covering his mouth, yanks her hand away. "Sorry," she grimaces.

"I still don't get it/ What are you really saying?/ Something about films?"

Gaige sighs and shakes her head, "Well obviously yes but also… maybe don't act like all the movies I like are dumb on the off chance that I might want to show you one someday?"

Zer0 blinks back at her as he thinks over what he's said recently.  "Ohhh," he says.  He'd mostly been joking but that doesn't mean he had also completely dismissed her taste in movies. "I get it now/ we can watch something you want/ I'm not that stubborn."  He leans up and kisses her on the forehead.

She shakes her head. "You're one of the most stubborn people I know-" Zer0 opens his mouth to counter but she adds, "But I get what you saying.  The thing is… I totally want to see your old as balls samurai movie.  Just try to not be such a huge ass all the time, alright?"

Zer0 rolls his eyes and frowns but Gaige just leans in and plants gentle kisses on mouth and face until to his chagrin, he starts smiling.

"You butt," she says like it's an endearment, before rolling off him and smacking him gently in the upper arm. "Now stop moping and get that movie going. I have now idea how your entertainment system works."

Zer0 kisses the top of her head and then. barely gets up as he reaches under his bed to pull out a remote control.  With the touch of a button, it becomes clear that the large, empty wall across from his bed is actually mostly a screen.  He has it hooked up to his personal computer so that he can play games, watch movies, replay combat footage for training purposes, etc all from the comfort of his bed.  When he'd first bought this ship, he'd intended this room to just be for sleeping but as all the other rooms had been assigned more important purposes then recreation and this room had ended up being the only one with a comfortable place to sit, his choice had been basically made for him.  

Gaige "ooohs" as the screen lights up, starting to ask questions about the specifics of his set up but he shushes her, quickly selecting his most watched movie from a list and starting it up.  "I'll answer later/ now it is time to focus/ on this work of art."

Gaige shakes her head but settles in again him, her head resting on his chest as she keeps her eyes peeled on the screen.  Zer0's not sure what he'd been expecting but it wasn't quite this. Probably thought she'd want some clothes at the very least but that hadn't seemed to be the case. He looks down at the top of her head, and then after a moment, slides an arm under her waist and around her back to hold her close.  She sighs happily, rubbing her cheek against his chest as the movie begins.

A minute later, she's propping herself up as she says, "This movie doesn't have subtitles, does it?"

Zer0 prys his eyes of the screen and shakes his head.  "It does not. Why?"

"It's just my translator doesn't really cover ancient Japanese, ya know-"

"Mine also doesn't," Zer0 interrupts her, "just watch and you'll understand/ it is how I learned."

Gaige frowns.  "Fine," she says after a moment, shaking her head as she rest it back on his chest, "I'll try but you better find a copy with subtitles in case we ever end up watching this again because I don't think this is going to work as well as you think it is."

"Shhhhh," Zer0 says, squeezing Gaige close to him, "just try."

***

An hour into the three and a half hour long movie, Zer0 realizes that Gaige has fallen asleep, probably still worn out from their long push to save Lilith there at the end.  He chuckles slightly to himself, turns down the volume on the movie and goes back to watching.  He'll just have to show her the rest of the film later.

***

"Marcie, no!"

Zer0 wakes with a start, a small arm beating against his chest with desperation.  He shakes his head, taking a moment to clear it and grasp what's going on only to realize that Gaige is yelling and thrashing in her sleep, obviously in the middle of a nightmare.

"Gaige," he says, voice even but still hoarse with sleep.  "Gaige," he tries again, this time sitting up and trying to restrain her so she won't hurt herself.  "Gaige!" he says a final time, this time shouting in hopes that he'll actually reach her.

Her eyes fly open. "Wha- what's going on?" she says, her eyes blinking rapidly as she tries to look at him.

"You were having a nightmare," he says, releasing his hold on her arms.

"Oh," she says, her eyes darting away from his to look at the walls, "th-that makes sense.  Sorry if I woke you up." She turns away from him then, wrapping her arms across her chest as she does so.

Zer0 cocks his head at her back, not sure what he's supposed to do.  He thinks he can guess what the nightmare was about but that doesn't mean he knows how to comfort her.  It makes sense to him that she'd regret what happened to Marcie, that she might be upset that she'd made such a simple mistake.  His first kill had been because of a mistake too, he'd gotten cocky and as a result instead of leaving no trace, he'd left a body.  It had been sloppy but he'd never had nightmares about it so he can't quite understand why Gaige would.  After a quiet minute where he turns it over in his head, he decides that words would probably not be so helpful here, especially from him.  Instead, he scoots closer to her, until his front is pushed up again her back, and then he wraps an arm around her.  She lets out a sigh and then relaxes against his body, if only a little.

"It was an accident you know," she says a long moment later, "I didn't mean to kill her."

Zer0 nods.  "I know."

"It was just a- wait a minute," she turns her face to look at his, "what do you mean, you know?" She turns the rest of the way around so that she's now fully facing him, "I never told any of you guys exactly what happened… I wanted you to all think I was… cool and killing your classmate by accident and basically ruining any future you had before that point is... definitely not cool."

"I listened to your ECHOcasts," Zer0 shrugs, faintly recalling that there was a reason he didn't want Gaige to know he'd done that but not remembering what it was at the moment.

Gaige's eyes grown wide and her cheeks start to turn pink.  "How many of them?"

"All of them?" he says, "why?"

"Ohhh nooooo," Gaige says, bringing her hands up to cover her face and then rolling on to her back. "All of them all of them?" she mutters through her hands, "Even the one where I may have mentioned in passing sexy stuff I like?"  

"Yes?" he says, starting to remember why he wasn't supposed to tell her this, "Is that a... problem?"

"It's nothing," she says, the blush traveling from her face and down her neck, "I just need to die now, that's all. NBD."

Zer0 sits up and leans over her, putting a hand on each side of her head as he looks down at her.  "Please don't be upset/ they're not as bad as you think/ it was just research."

Gaige's eyes fly open and she eases her hands off her face. "Wait, research? When you did you do this? It's not like we've had a ton of free time since we got together."

"After I first saw DT, why?" he says, the rest of the reason he wasn't supposed to tell her this starting to come into focus.

"You listened to all of my ECHOcasts before we were even dating?" She looks up at him, confusion now mostly replacing embarrassment.   "Why the hell would you do that?"

Now it's Zer0's turn to feel embarrassed.  "You were intriguing," he stutters slightly, "more data was required/ to judge just how much."

"So what you're saying," she smiles up at him mischievously, "is that you've liked me for a long time, like basically since we met."

"No," Zer0 rolls onto his back and away from her smug smile, "it wasn't like that."

"Come on," she says, sitting up and replicating Zer0's earlier position with her hands braced on each side of his head, "Like sure, maybe if you'd just listened to a few of the most recent ones, I'd believe you about the whole 'just research' thing but you listened to all of them, including the one where I did a scathing review of the Hunger Games movies.  How would you have made it through all of those if you didn't, ya know, like me just a little already?"

Zer0 thinks it over, remembering how he'd made a habit of listening to her ECHOcasts whenever he'd done an easy solo job and frowning.  He hadn't thought anything about it at the time, had thought it was just a logical choice but he recalls smiling a lot while he listened to them and chuckling at her dumb jokes.  "I… don't know."  He meets her eyes and blinks, "Maybe you're right."

"Damn right I am," Gaige smiles down at him, then leans down to claim his lips.  

He kisses her back, letting the realization that he'd cared about her longer than he'd known sink in.  Why else would he have listened to all of those ECHOcasts? Or humored her constant prodding into his business? Or been so stupid as to try to physically stop a skag from hitting her?  It's the only thing that makes sense now that he thinks about it, even if he knows he'd never have realized his feelings if she hadn't pursued him so openly.  He doesn't want to think about it though, what could have been so he kisses her harder, his tongue venturing eagerly into her parted mouth.

They fall into sex easily, Gaige's hands roaming down his side and to his cock as they kiss. They’ve done this three times now and still it has a powerful sway over him.  All Gaige really has to do is kiss his neck or the sensitive skin where his mods meet flesh and his brain switches to a lower setting where all he can do is register her reactions to his touches and strive to make her come undone. The weirdest thing is that, in past, Zer0 had never enjoyed making people come this much.  Sure he'd felt a vague sense of accomplishment at doing his task correctly but nothing like the rush he feels when Gaige comes undone thanks to his handiwork.  In fact, Gaige coming is satisfying in the exactly the same way a good clean kill is and he wonders if just like a good killing blow, it will still be satisfying once it's easy.  He thinks (and maybe even hopes) that it will be.

They're laying on his bed afterwards, languid and happy when Gaige mumbles into his chest, warm and unassuming, "God, I fucking love you."

Zer0 stops absently running his hand along her side, a rush of joy followed by terror freezing him in his tracks.  Gaige seems to notice what she's just said and sits bolt upright, eyes wide, before climbing over him and running out of the room.

Zer0 stares at the door for a moment, trying to get his thoughts in order. A part of him is terrified, the idea of Gaige feeling so deeply for him overwhelming him.  This was definitely not part of his greater life plan, though to be honest, little of what has happened between them has been.  On the other hand though, his first reaction had to been to be… happy, and thinking back on her saying those words makes his chest clench with something... hope maybe? He's not sure if this means he loves her back (he doubts it, he's much too sensible for that) but he knows he cares about her and the thought of losing her affections over something as silly as this bothers him so starts to develop a plan, some sort of offering to prove how much she means to him without him doing or saying something incredibly stupid.  A moment later, he springs to his feet and pulling back on his hakama, chases after Gaige, hoping he's not too late.  

He finds her the first place he checks: the engine room. She's sitting with her back against the wall, her eyes trained on the engine with tear stains on her face, her mouth periodically curling into a grimace.  He knows she hasn't noticed him yet so he backs down the hall and takes a few loud footstep on his way back to the door.

"Oh hey," she chuckles out as he appears in the doorframe, her expression a false mask of calm. "I just thought I'd... give her another once over, ya know, just to be thorough."  Her eyes dart away from him and back to the engine.

He walks over and sits down next to her on the floor, the warmth of her arm seeping into his own immediately.  "Okay," he says, not sure if he should push the subject or not and deciding on not.

They sit in silence for a while, the hum of the engine and the sound of her breathing the only things filling the space.  After a few minutes, she finally starts to speak, all tension and forced words. “I have something I need to- say.. to you.” She pauses but she doesn't look at him as she continues.  “I lied, back when this whole thing was starting."  Zer0 cocks his head at her, not sure what she means.  "I mean, I know it wasn’t a promise promise really but I did say it and it's a lie…" She clenches her teeth and sighs. "I do maybe, kinda want something serious.  With you.  I might kinda,” her voice trails off and she seems to choke on her words. “So yeah, if you want to kick me out or whatever, I’ll understand.  I’ll be cool about it, I swear.”

Zer0 looks down at the top of her head and it pains him to see how much this is hurting her. There is a moment's hesitation where he regrets every single decisions that had lead to this one before he starts listing off a sequence of numbers.

She looks over at him, her eyes wide.  “Did- you hear me?”

“Yes,” Zer0 nods his head and then finishes the sequence of numbers he'd started.

“Numbers?” He can practically see the gears in her head turn. “They sound like fast travel coordinates but they aren’t to anywhere that I know of.  Are they where you want me to go to?” She looks up at him, fear that she's being banished somewhere awful obvious in her eyes.

Zer0 shakes his head.  “More like stay,” he says, leaning over and pecking her on the forehead.

“Stay? So does that mean...No,” her eyes grow wide, the beginnings of a smile teasing her lips.  “No way!  You did not just give me the fast travel code to your super secret ninja spaceship, did you?"

Zer0 nods.  

"Fuck," she shakes her head, "what am I supposed to do with that?”

“Memorize it.” Zer0 smiles.

“So it’s like," she bites her bottom lips in an attempt to keep her smile under control, "an open invitation? To come here and... be with you?”

“Yes.”

“So you really don’t mind that I maybe kinda... love you a little?” she says the last four words like they are all one, then grimaces and looks down at her lap.

Zer0 reaches for her jaw and gently turns her face back up to meet his.  “A rare girl like you/ can even make someone like me/ need them in their life.”

Gaige smiles big at that, her cheeks pinkening a little.  “You know, you can be pretty sweet sometimes.”

“I try,” he says and pulls her in for a kiss.

Tomorrow they should probably head back to the planet and their dangerous, violent, wonderful lives.  The others have to be wondering what happened to them and their work on Pandora is not nearly done yet.  But for now, for this quiet moment, they are safe and alone and they have each other.  And Zer0 would have never thought to want something like this, this strange wonderful little thing, but now that he has it, he can’t seem to stop.  So he leans into the kiss, warm and sweet, and for this tiny, little moment, nothing else matters.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of this story. I want to thank everyone whose stuck with me through me writing this and everyone whose ever left kudos or a nice comment on the story. It is people like you that make it just a bit easier for someone like me to get willpower to keep working on this thing. Thank you with all my heart.
> 
> As for Zer0 and Gaige, while this story is over and I don't have another story this large planned for them, know that they are one of my favorite pairing to write so I'm sure more stuff for them will appear from time to time. Arm Repairs is not an end but a beginning to a beautiful future together.


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